To say that an earth-dwelling Kryptonian doesn't need to eat would be inaccurate, in that it requires a fundamentally reductive definition of 'need'. An earth-dwelling Kryptonian doesn't 'need' a great deal of things, by that logic. He doesn't need to eat, absorbing his energy and life force from the sun, and doesn't need to sleep. He doesn't need to seek shelter, for the cold doesn't quite sink its teeth into him, and the shade is antithetical to what he does need. He doesn't need the companionship of humans, or their respect, or to be helped up when he falls. He doesn't need to come home, unless he wants to, or to even have a home. Maybe he never even needs to touch down.
Clark Kent, however, has his own needs. Even for a flying man of steel, gravity is not a choice, but a fundamental of the universe by which he governs his movement. For as long as Kent farm exists, it will always pull at him. Beyond even that, certain rituals reinforce connection; his people were probably the same kind of social animal as he the human being he was raised as. Sharing a meal, passing dishes over the table, getting up to take care of refills, taking Bruce's phone from Martha to look at, and handing it back again.
These aren't thoughts he thinks in their entirety, but they lurk beneath the surface, thanks to time spent away, dead or alive. There are moments that feel a little greyer than they used to, and moments that feel more vivid. This one belongs in the latter category.
Martha asks after Alfred, sensing the undercurrent of family as something better understood than questions of employment. (Confirming, too, that an inquisitive nature in Clark does not only come from a surprise career as a news reporter.) There are spans of time where Clark doesn't say anything, having eaten his fill and relaxing back in his chair, contributing idle remarks, finishing his beer and watching them both. Martha, at home in her own home, and Bruce, who Clark suspects of enjoying himself, but he can already feel a desire to find out for real.
"Clark?"
"Yep?" Startling from idle staring, Clark snaps to attention at gentle verbal prod across the table. "Present."
"I was saying that my granny's eggnog recipe is among our best kept secrets next to you, and isn't that right."
"I mean, obviously." Rising to his feet, Clark moves to start taking up dishes to clear the table. Shelby gets up along with him, clearly keen to lick any plates that might come her way. To Bruce, aside, "Maple syrup and a little salt."
Kryptonians on Krypton were human, is what Bruce would have said, to that line of thought. Unscientific and factually incorrect as it is. And yet, it must be true, because Kal-El is here and not on some other planet full of emotionless beings. If his body is of the stars, his heart and soul are terran, and that's two versus one.
He's good at it. Being human. Better than Bruce, that's for sure.
There's a look on his face, a flicker of almost-laughing-- perhaps it had been behind his teeth to say So it's not a secret at all, in Smallville?
Because.
Anyway, he's saved, because Clark fills in the blank of the joke for him, breezily outing the recipe as easy as Zod blowing a hole through the roof of the house they're all sat in right now. (Should he have asked Clark about creating a new identity on paper? He could. Can. No one would be able to see through it; the FBI itself could not crack even Bruce's earliest forgeries. Maybe he'll ask. Not today. Making the offer on Christmas would be weird-- though practical. Who doesn't like a practical gift?
Please help him, holiday deities.)
Eggnog is strange. Raw custard and nutmeg and not enough alcohol. He wonders about making it, despite being fully aware it'd be a glass of brandy with a spiced cream garnish. Bruce drinks it even though it bucks up against his preferences, too sweet and cloying, because it seems correct, and because he's pretty sure Marta Kent could get him to eat sandpaper with bit of broken glass if she offered it to him.
Richard would like it.
Brains are the worst.
"What am I doing here?" he asks, when they're outside on the porch watching the snow come down in fat flakes. Ostensibly to take the dog out. He knows it's Clark behind him, not Martha; footsteps. Clark. What am I doing here.
Clark closes the door behind him, eyebrows drawn together at that question. He hasn't bothered to put further layers back on, hands bare against the frigid air, but not cold. He generates his own warmth, and out here, maybe Bruce can feel a breath of it when he steps out alongside. Shelby's made tracks in the snow, digging around, still exuberant from the way the house smells so different and there's a new human to make friends with.
He sort of knows how she feels, does Clark, but lacking a tail to wag, he just fidgets with what he brought out with him. There's only one person in the world he might wrap a present with black paper for. It's of modest size, a little crumpled. Soft.
"Still figuring that out myself," he says, with hapless honesty.
Except he has a few ideas. Saying them out loud, even if invited to, strikes him as awfully presumptuous.
Bruce lets out an abrupt bark of laughter, dry in the brittle air, and it's parts You'd be amazed how well I can tolerate things I hate and You know I don't, you already know how much I absolutely do not hate this.
What he hates: that Clark can read him like that, already. He tells himself it's because Clark can probably detect his pulse and his breathing and the tension in the depths of his muscles or whatever other neuron-firing atomic-level bullshit that his alien senses allow him to observe like an expression on his face. But if it's any of that, then it's only a little. Clark has known him for barely any amount of time, and yet he still knows him, and it is so infuriating.
Bruce has decided something. Foolishly, but inevitably. He's going to--
Stop short when he turns to look at Clark, catching the being-fidgeted-with wrapped item. His eyebrows go up.
Stepping into an alternate universe where he has no control over the things that come out of his mouth, Bruce says, "I don't really need anything. I mean, I - probably own whatever store most people would pick something up from, I'm kind of an awful anomaly about it, it's-- stupid. Uhm." An in this horrible alternate universe, he doesn't even have the dignity to not say uhm or have it sound like he's being an asshole. No, he sounds as nervous an suddenly off-kilter as he did in Russia, I don't-- not--
Somewhere out there is a universe where he's not a complete tool. Bruce looks back out a that the snow, and Shelby, and is glad he's not the type to turn red. (New Jersey accent voice: Ffffuuuuuuck.)
Clark opens his mouth, and kind of stands there stupidly for a moment before closing it just when Bruce has finished. He's not sure whether the contents of his present are inane enough in a way he should be shy about, all of a sudden, or defensible in light of Bruce talking about owning the world. Paper crinkles a little before he makes himself stop.
"Bruce," is a little laughed. Steam in the air, from between perfectly aligned white teeth. "Trust me, I absolutely realised the 'man who has everything' factor, so just-- here." He manages not to say it's stupid, so don't worry, because surely Bruce can come to that conclusion on his own.
He holds it out.
(It's socks, he got him socks. Not practical socks, nothing that Bruce could hope to fit into his most generous of bat boots, but the woolly, curl up at the fireplace kind of socks that require some degree of homebody relaxation to be appreciated.
They are black, with yellow bats. Wintry Halloween fair.)
"Bat guy," he says, clumsily, around when Bruce actually opens it.
That other universe. Bruce needs to find and inhabit it, immediately.
He's being incredibly insulting, or he would if he'd managed to get that out without tripping over himself like a tongue-tied kid, and what does Clark do-- just laughs, hands him the gift anyway. Bruce is powerless to do anything but accept it and peel back the somber wrapping paper (that he found black wrapping paper is so hilariously detailed, who does that). And then Bruce is holding what might as well be knockoff merch of his own phantasm persona, holding fuzzy socks, and staring at them, dumbfounded.
You have to abort, a voice in his head tells him, of the thing he'd decided to do. It's a reasonable, logical voice. You had a window thirty seconds ago before this element was in play, but it's closed and you can't, now, because you're never going to hear the end of it. He's going to decide the bat-socks are were a factor, just to drive you up a wall. You know this.
Well, yeah, he thinks. But the socks are kind of a factor, now.
Whatever argument the reasonable voice might have had (probably That's even more reason to stop you absolute moron), he never lets himself get there. Bruce looks up, reaches out with the hand not holding socks and crumpled black paper, fits his work-worn fingers around the back of Clark's neck - against the soft hair at the base of his skull, his thumb at the edge of his jaw. There's a heatbeat of time that accounts for traversing the space between them - a few feet apart, an extra few vertical inches to clear. Plenty of time for Clark to stop him or punch him in the face. Bruce kisses him.
Plenty of time for Clark to consider whether the Vulcan nerve pinch might have any effect on him and whether the socks were really bad enough to warrant it.
He remembers standing in the store and locating the socks by chance and not even thinking twice about how this is definitely the perfect gift for Bruce Wayne, and maybe had he played out the actual giving of it in his mind somewhere between there and standing at the register with these socks and Barry's shirt, he might have come up with something else. Because he wouldn't have anticipated that hand at the back of his neck, and Bruce suddenly close.
And tipping up his chin to meet the kiss when it comes.
Surprised, despite that instinct, heart doing a flip. Clark hovers his hands at his sides before landing them gently on Bruce's arms. Fingers close on folds of fabric, smooth them out again with the warm flat of his palms. Beyond that, he honestly does not do much, maybe enough to inspire a withdraw, but doesn't allow it, closing the space of a millimetre's give with the soft pressure of participatory kiss.
As he'd imagined doing, replaying that one strange encounter a handful of times with the occasional deviation.
He has a way he goes about this - kissing - that he holds himself away from, tonight. Always edging on just too aggressive, having grown too old or too bitter for both patience and gentleness, halfway punishing himself for sexual desire by denying any room for catharsis barring the physical; certainly he has no room for comfort, or care.
Except for now. Now, when the only roughness is the faint scrape of his artful five o'clock shadow against Clark's perfect skin, and when Bruce doesn't push at all until the younger man shifts into it. Even then it's soft, barely more than tentative. Like maybe he'll break this spell by being himself, and so he's careful, lips only parting once he's thought about it specifically, seeking out the core of that unearthly warmth.
His other hand finds his side, padded by woolen socks and the faint crinkle of paper.
He didn't think it was possible for them to be this way with each other. When they'd been sparring, in that moment when he knew, Bruce had figured it would be like his most prominent dreams (and nightmares). Violent. Clashing. Clawing for the energy that had bloomed with such fire between them-- and would that be bad? It was passionate, after all, and he thought if they'd have anything it would be an extension of that-- getting each other out of their systems, or worsening the addiction, who knows.
What Clark remembers most clearly from sparring are the gentle touches and adjustments, the mock-strike taps to his ribcage or back or face; Bruce's focus on him, his attention, finely detailed; and of course, but also only after that, Bruce beneath him, and the fact that he does not, did not, feel guilt in extracting some amount of pleasure from all of it. Clark had figured it would be like
well, just that. Walled off, disguised, stolen.
This is better than that, certainly.
(He is dimly aware of Shelby, now up on the porch and out of the ice, and absolutely not aware of Martha Kent checking out the curtain that neither man froze to death at any point, eyebrows going up, mouth pinched into a half-smile and very carefully letting lacy hangings back into place. Alright then.)
His hands, unmanicured and rugged and manful, find places to be on Bruce's ribcage, curled high against his shoulder, only just resisting the temptation to press his palm over that resting heart rate. Warmth radiates mainly from the torso outwards, stifling in their close contact, but spread through his skin, his hands, and between them in open mouthed kissing, the slightly clumsy bump of teeth and lips as Clark figures out this somewhat new angle. Maybe it's an illusion in the chill.
Clark opens his eyes on a slight delay when there is a moment's break, eventually, a slightly anxious flick of his eyes as he reads Bruce's, left to right. But a smile upticks the corner of his mouth, anxiety not being thr right word, probably.
Shelby puts her cold nose at the back of Bruce's leg.
"You're welcome," because it's definitely about the socks.
Helpfully, while Bruce is out of practice with other men by a vast expanse of time, he is accustomed to fitting his mouth against a shorter person's. It is, in fact, routine (as it must be for all people with his particular dimensions), and so the only angle he's concerned with is finding each new best way they fit together for these exploratory kisses. On a delayed thought, 'exploratory' doesn't seem like the right word; learning, maybe. If there are echoes of relief or need, he worries that they're only coming from him - because who needs Bruce Wayne? And furthermore, what does Kal-El of Krypton possibly need from anyone? Much less an old man who tried to murder him.
That this is happening at all after what Bruce has done to him feels unreal. It's only the lack of horror that tells him it isn't a dream, for his subconscious, clever as it might be, is too disdainful to ever bribe him with a fantasy without suffering.
Clark says You're welcome and Bruce twitches one brow up, looking back into his eyes - it's a shame that it's too dark out here to really see the dual color of them, but he's plenty beautiful as-is standing in the moonlight. Instead of trying for some kind of sassy comeback he tips his head forward for another kiss, and this time he lets the barest edge of withheld roughness bleed through. Desirous and thorough and with a ghosting imprint of white teeth at his lower lip when he pulls away.
There's an awkward, un-Bat-like shuffle, getting socks from his off-hand to the one at Clark's neck. Freed, he pats Shelby's head.
"I'm in the middle of something," he rumbles at the dog. Thump thump. Her tail happily whacks the porch railing.
It certainly eliminates some foolish smiling, kiss catching on teeth and blood stirring. It's over quick, Clark borderline swaying back towards it before re-centring, soberly finding himself staring at Bruce's profile. Impervious to socks and shuffles and Shelbys. He's not entirely sure what he would do with Bruce in any kind of long term plan, but he knows that if this is the last time they have physical closeness, this specific kind of intimacy
well he is less convinced of that, now, but still. As soon as Bruce's attention strays back off his dog, Clark pushes back in by planting his hand on the side of the other man's face and unstoppably drawing him back in for round two, a more heated and assertive version on his end of things. Momentum might push them both a little off-balance, if it was possible to be off-balance when you're Superman. A steadying hand on Bruce's chest.
"What're you doing for New Years?" is a line, once it's done.
There's no plan long-term enough that can account for forces of nature like the two of them.
But the way Clark leans after him when they part is gratifying - the way he pulls him back for more far beyond just gratification. Bruce is human, so fragile in comparison to a Kryptonian, but perhaps the most solid human he'll have ever leaned into. He doesn't go anywhere near off-balance, though if Clark is paying attention, he'll be able to hear - feel? - his heartbeat, made so much quicker, breath made almost shallow, warmth flushing through him that has nothing to do with the solarpowered man he's holding. Being held by.
He's abandoned Shelby to grip Clark's side, letting them slip closer to each other like-- gravity, like magnets, like the tide and the rocks it breaks against. Like, for a less dramatic image, two people who want to be near.
And. Then. Bruce tilts his head back a little, giving Clark a narrow-eyed, incredulous look in the colored Christmas light glow. "Do you need to reschedule?"
The incredulity is oddly reassuring, like Bruce has no where to be in particular right now either, like the dreamlike quality of Christmas lights and snow and surprise kisses is not as temporary as it immediately feels. Bruce, himself, certainly doesn't feel like a passing moment, solid muscle on solid bone and solid centre of gravity. The solid thump of a faster heartbeat.
"Just filling up your dance card."
Preemptively. You're meant to kiss on the stroke of midnight. Clark has seen movies.
There's little room between them, now. Just the padding of winter garments, and Clark's own hyperawareness easily circumventing conventional layers like wool and cotton and skin. The hand settled to brace against Bruce's chest relaxing a little, fingertips tracking along weave.
Maybe Clark had heard an earthquake in Tunisia and had to leave. How the heck would Bruce know.
"Oh," he says, like it's a complete sentence. Oh, all right, and-- there's more, but it's overwritten by another kiss, because even if the way this exchange is going suggests a trajectory past tonight, what if it never happens? What if this is the only time? Clark could come to his senses, or Bruce could develop willpower. This is, after all, a terrible idea.
"Nothing." On New Year's, he's not doing anything. Said mostly against Clark's lips, still pressed close. "It's too cold for anyone to try anything in Gotham, I usually have the night off."
January on the eastern seaboard, every crook, big and small, too intimidated by the weather to bother with anything with the city blanketed in snow and ice. (Well, maybe Victor*, but he retired before Bruce had, the first time. Maybe he'll tell Clark about it someday.)
Speaking of freezing, Bruce should be just that. But Clark is so warm.
Oh, that's good or oh, that's interesting or something similar might have been a reply that Clark's mouth begins to shape around but he is far more interested in kissing even more, too privately enamoured with (and maybe just a little giddy about) the idea that Bruce would rather be doing that than talking. (On reflection, later, that may make sense, but here and now, the slight clumsiness of words mumbled into kisses is charming.)
He, too, is settling into the way their bodies fit together, a hand laying now on the back of Bruce's neck and the other keeping him anchored with a handful of shirt.
The snow comes down harder. That Martha has not interrupted them indicates to Clark that she knows not to, but this thought is shelved firmly before he can weigh in on it or act on it. What he does react to is the sound of the dog door suddenly swinging as Shelby gives up on these losers, turning to look.
Let's go to Tibet and find a yurt to make out in.
"We should probably go inside now."
It's a stilted way to say that. Specific. Maybe Bruce's way of saying words is catching, transferable via open mouthed kisses. Maybe Clark just wants to find a phrase that can't be loopholed into meaning that they should go inside and never so much as make eye contact again. But there is humour, crinkled at the corners of his eyes, present in ever-ready smile. He doesn't let go, but he does open up his embrace so that it's not an accidental man of steel cage.
A wise course of action, especially given that the pause allows Bruce's internal clock to catch up and put together: yes, Martha probably poked her head out and went right back inside. A mildly panic-inducing thought, because it's one thing to be happy your son brought a friend you like over, it's another to catch your son making out with said friend. He forgets, sometimes, that not everywhere is the same social super-liberal (immoral?) haven as Gotham City (the conservatives love it - look, look, they let the queers touch and give poors more food stamps in Jersey, and their capitol is a shithole). Though, Clark did not seem particularly skittish, and it's nearly 2018. Maybe she's fine with the fact that it wasn't a woman her son was out here attached to by the face.
"And pretend we've been talking about the weather for an hour?"
He's got jokes.
He's also got-- this last thing, before he steps away (which feels terrible, for a moment). Bruce nuzzles against him, faint sound of stubble audible in the chilly air, and kisses his jaw near the curve of it, nose pressing just behind his ear. It would be fine, he thinks, to stand out here until he can't feel his feet for the cold - to discover if it's possible to leave Clark's invulnerable lips kiss-reddened, to memorize the taste of his mouth on an atomic level.
Going inside and not looking like complete lunatics or twitterpated teenagers is fine, too.
Quippiness of this line utterly spoiled with distraction, because what the fuck. The gentleness mingled with intimacy almost has Clark reversing that subtle withdraw, the desire to luxuriate in gentle touches and the slightly assumptive, soft way Bruce is going about all this is a powerful deterrent against going inside. It's ridiculous. What the fuck is wrong with him. All he does is kind of go still, then tip his head to bump temple to Bruce's in slightly doggish affection.
They go inside. Martha is doing a pretty good impression of having not seen anything, although the slightly evasive eye contact with Clark in specific while they do the last of the dishes is confirmation enough and he feels-- like he should probably want to die about it, but abstractly does not.
Probably 'cause she's still smiling like that at Bruce as she shows him to the guest room they've prepared, asking if he's got all he needs. Good enough.
They turn in early, relatively speaking. It's cold and deeply dark, anyway, and Clark lies in his old room and listens to Martha easing into her early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine slumber. He is busy staring fixedly at the ceiling. Thinks about calling Lois. Hey, you know that thing we talked about? I have some developments. But how're the folks? That's it, for people he could talk to, with his mom asleep, and Diana still qualifies as Bruce's friend, anyway.
So that's fine. He's just regressed into his sixteen-year-old self, lying where he's lying now, thinking about every stupid thing he'd managed to say to Lana Lang that day.
Bed springs shift, a half-motion towards getting out of bed. He redirects his focus to the guest room, mostly just to confirm if Bruce is also awake, or if he's turned into a pumpkin with promptness. Bare feet silent where they touch down, gravity whatever he makes of it, he goes to step out into the cold, dark hallway.
Bruce casts a glance at Clark when it's decided - surprised, a little, and somewhat apologetic like Oh that's right, of course Smallville runs on normal, sane person time. He will not be sleeping, and not only because of the electrical current under his skin that's lingered even after uncoupling from Clark and returning indoors.
And not only because he's a graveyard shift person in general. He stares at his phone-- at the reminders in text form (easy for Alfred to say, he's still allowed to speak to him), at the number still at the top of his speed dial, several years and new phones on, always programmed in, always carried over. The number whose last contact is an outgoing, unconnected call dated exactly twelve months ago. (It used to be a gap of nine months, between his birthday and the holiday season, but that fell by the wayside; a concession to I'd prefer it if you stopped calling.)
He should. Stop calling.
It rings, and hits voicemail. The recorded playback is a cheery, male voice, vowels flattened by the same dialect Bruce only rarely exhibits. The sound of it would not reach anyone else's ears, but, well. Circumstances are what they are. You've reached Richard Grayson! Who is using this name now to avoid having a voicemail box that sounds like you misdialed and got a phone sex line. Tell me all your secrets and I'll get back to you!
'It's me.' (He knows who it is. He hasn't blocked Bruce's number, though he could. Maybe that's a sign.) 'I'm sure you heard... well, maybe not. I don't know what you talk about. Alfred's in England, and I'm in Kansas. Not snowed in at Wichita airport or anything, either. It's...' (Silence.) 'You'd like it. There's a dog.' (More silence.) 'Happy Christmas.'
Click.
Happy, not merry, because he was raised by an Englishman. Whatever. Bruce lets out a breath and tosses his phone on his bag, desultory. Parent of the fucking year. He did not speak loudly, not wanting to disrupt Martha - and he did not take the call outside, knowing that if Clark wanted to eavesdrop, he could do so from a solar-system away. Does he care if the younger man listened in? ... He's not sure.
There's no tell-tale sound of shifting weight or ungainly footsteps to alert him to anyone's nearness, but Bruce turns his head to look at the closed door anyway, almost expectant. Ninja senses, perhaps.
For an extended few seconds, Clark stands near Bruce's door, shoulder to wall, listening with only a little regret that there's something to listen to, knowing himself too well to pretend to focus on something else. By now, he's graduated from "who's that?", not the kind of thing you want to say near anything resembling a red carpet, to having done enough homework to contextualise what he hears.
The homework itself does not fit what he knows, now, of either Batman or Bruce Wayne.
Silence, then. Go back to bed. Clark imagines doing that, lying awake, stiflingly conscious of Bruce also lying awake. A Christmas nightmare.
He gently brushes his knuckles against the door, a tap to announce his presence before his hand goes to the door handle, easing his way inside when he's not immediately told to go away. Shorts and T-shirt make up his pyjamas, all loose on him, all nondescript. He does, in fact, own some of his own merch in pyjama form, in jokey and adorable, and he's left it in Metropolis, thank god.
"I heard you not sleeping," is his explanation, that easy, midwestern blend of amused and apologetic at the same time.
Thanks for not saying you heard me being a shitty father, he thinks, but doesn't let out into the world. There's a bit of it in his gaze, though, dark eyes settled on Clark's bright ones. He's not shamed of his kids--
Kid.
He's not ashamed, Dick isn't a secret, he just isn't sure how to bring it up. Or why he would. It's probably not relevant. But he figures Clark knows on some level, anyway, being an investigator. It's just, you know, weird, that single parent is on the list of improbable shit about Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne who should look like someone's been cut out of a fashion magazine and pasted into a John Deere one in this small room. And yet he manages to blend in, wearing dark green plaid pajama pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, sitting on the edge of the guest bed, perfectly awake.
If Clark had not heard the call that came before, if he'd not wandered the retired halls of Wayne Manor, he might make fun, with that's a boring thing to say, Bruce: the cynicism, the aloofness. He finds himself swerving around a lot of jokes that seem to poke at the bruises he's uncovering, as time wears on. Glad that he's uncovering them.
He invites himself in further, despite that look, all the way to taking a seat for himself at the edge of the bed, mattress dipping beneath dense weight.
"Me too," he says, unbelievably, given black wrapping paper and table setting and the entire evening, and doesn't let the statement stand unqualified for long. The timbre of his voice is always a little deeper when he's being quiet. Warmer. "Used to, I mean, because I missed it. The times I couldn't come home, you know, 'cause of the money and the distance, or just." Or just.
That he couldn't. Shame and guilt. He has no earthly idea what lies between Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson, but he knows there's tons of reasons a kid might not pick up the phone when his parent calls him, even on Christmas.
Like maybe it's late and he's partying, Clark doesn't know, but knows enough to assume maybe not just that. A natural inclination to keep something unsaid has him just shrugging a little, letting his own recollection go implied.
"I'm glad you made it out. Three's not a crowd, here. I know mom's been wanting to do something nice." For you. For Christmas. Either or.
Alfred gives him plenty of shit about hating Christmas. Clark'll learn; there are no bruises, not really, unless Bruce is one giant bruise overall. Sometimes it's fine if he just takes the abuse, because otherwise he's truly intolerable instead of just facetiously intolerable.
Still. Personally, he appreciates the commiseration. The or just.
Bruce's hand finds his. He wouldn't do this if Clark seemed like he would tense up or pull away, if Clark had a sliver of reservation about this being his mother's house with her in it. Please push me away some part of him begs, like Superman can save him from this, too.
"When I was an angry kid," opposed to the angry adult he is now, yes, "I would resent people who got into fights with or had tension with their parents. Because they didn't know what they had." He turns Clark's hand, palm up, trails his fingertips over the creases in his skin. "Now when I imagine things, I wonder about the kind of fights we'd get into. And it's kind of beautiful to see it in other people, I think, especially when things work out in the end.
You gotta stop being so easy, Smallville, is what he thinks to himself, because he's been called that enough by literally everyone he has any affection for -- Bruce, Lois, Perry -- that it's entered into his internal monologue in moments of self-awareness. Maybe it's just something about the act of touching that's entrancing. From Bruce, or from anyone. Maybe they've been lonely people a lot.
His hand is pliable and he watches Bruce map out lines with rough fingertips, nerves tingling. Not desensitised, even if he maybe should be, for how often he gets thrown through walls. He starfishes his fingers out, folds them back over Bruce's knuckles. Exactly what Bruce didn't want, all according to plan.
Inside his chest, his heart wrings a little, and his gaze lifts up, unshy about proximity.
He feels a twinge; inevitable, given topics. He had frequent fights with dad in those weird later years, one he never got to finish, or work it out in the end. It's not the first time he's felt this twinge, and it doesn't stall him, not anymore, it just passes through like a cold wind until it's gone. He strokes his thumb down the edge of Bruce's.
"You'd be welcome to stay. It'll get kind of hectic," admittedly. He doesn't imagine it'll be Bruce's scene, especially if he hates more of Christmas than just the heart pangs it brings about. So he adds, crooked smile, "But now's just fine."
It's funny, the priorities people can have, about death. We never resolved that argument is not something Bruce would think of his late son; perhaps because their arguing was so frequent as to be completely normal. That young man, brilliant and sharp, would hate the way Bruce is so careful of Richard now. He'd hate this, too, knowing Bruce was sitting in the dark holding someone's hand instead of just 'pulling the trigger'. Too soft for him. The nights when the horror of memory became too much and he found himself curled up with his adopted father, seeking that intangible sense of safety, were moments to be ignored as soon as the sun rose.
What are you talking about, Bruce would say, to Clark. You're here. Your mother's here. You love each other. It's worked out.
"I'm just as appealing at parties when I'm not pretending as when I am," Bruce tells him, a little wry. He can't play the socialite asshole, here, just the kind of asshole he is naturally, and that leads to a problem which is self-evident in the wording. Bruce sees no reason to end up causing difficulties with their friends due to his lack of personable graces; at best, he'd be a silent, awkward addition. Maybe Clark thinks he wouldn't mind, that Bruce's company would be worth the strangeness, and that is-- dangerous. And overly optimistic. Clark will mind, in action.
Now's just fine.
Bruce wants to kiss him. It's obvious in the way his fingers are linked against Clark's, the way his pulse has evened out after that phone call only to subtly tick up again. But he hesitates, like maybe it wouldn't be welcome. Like there's any clearer sign than Clark sitting in bed with him in his underwear.
The irony being that what Clark thinks of resolving an argument just means taking it back. Telling Jonathan he didn't mean it, what he was saying, that he loves him, none of it mattered. It's an old hurt. Martha holding him close, saying, he knew that, honey, he knows, neither of them really understanding the emptiness of that reassurance. What Clark had wanted to make him understand.
That's reductive, Clark would say, to Bruce.
To be honest, practice of pulling his mind out of the past is a reflex, and he's currently smiling a little at the idea of Bruce Wayne, billionaire persona and all, suffering a Christmas morning with a dozen unimpressed midwesterners. What he actually expects to happen is that Bruce's company would be worth the actual strangeness that would happen instead, that there's nothing wrong with that.
Instead of pressing the point, he just listens to heart rates without breaking eye contact, smile dimming. Doesn't mind the hesitation, because it gives him an opportunity to reach out. He slides his hand from Bruce's, only to touch fingertips to jaw, feeling the rough texture of stubble that's been haunting him since the first kiss, and the last. He's going to develop some Pavlovian instincts out of this, he can tell.
Realises he's looking at Bruce's mouth, trains his eyes back upwards, and then leans in to kiss. It feels different, doing that here; slower and sleepier, like they've been doing it forever.
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Clark Kent, however, has his own needs. Even for a flying man of steel, gravity is not a choice, but a fundamental of the universe by which he governs his movement. For as long as Kent farm exists, it will always pull at him. Beyond even that, certain rituals reinforce connection; his people were probably the same kind of social animal as he the human being he was raised as. Sharing a meal, passing dishes over the table, getting up to take care of refills, taking Bruce's phone from Martha to look at, and handing it back again.
These aren't thoughts he thinks in their entirety, but they lurk beneath the surface, thanks to time spent away, dead or alive. There are moments that feel a little greyer than they used to, and moments that feel more vivid. This one belongs in the latter category.
Martha asks after Alfred, sensing the undercurrent of family as something better understood than questions of employment. (Confirming, too, that an inquisitive nature in Clark does not only come from a surprise career as a news reporter.) There are spans of time where Clark doesn't say anything, having eaten his fill and relaxing back in his chair, contributing idle remarks, finishing his beer and watching them both. Martha, at home in her own home, and Bruce, who Clark suspects of enjoying himself, but he can already feel a desire to find out for real.
"Clark?"
"Yep?" Startling from idle staring, Clark snaps to attention at gentle verbal prod across the table. "Present."
"I was saying that my granny's eggnog recipe is among our best kept secrets next to you, and isn't that right."
"I mean, obviously." Rising to his feet, Clark moves to start taking up dishes to clear the table. Shelby gets up along with him, clearly keen to lick any plates that might come her way. To Bruce, aside, "Maple syrup and a little salt."
"Oh, you don't know a thing."
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He's good at it. Being human. Better than Bruce, that's for sure.
There's a look on his face, a flicker of almost-laughing-- perhaps it had been behind his teeth to say So it's not a secret at all, in Smallville?
Because.
Anyway, he's saved, because Clark fills in the blank of the joke for him, breezily outing the recipe as easy as Zod blowing a hole through the roof of the house they're all sat in right now. (Should he have asked Clark about creating a new identity on paper? He could. Can. No one would be able to see through it; the FBI itself could not crack even Bruce's earliest forgeries. Maybe he'll ask. Not today. Making the offer on Christmas would be weird-- though practical. Who doesn't like a practical gift?
Please help him, holiday deities.)
Eggnog is strange. Raw custard and nutmeg and not enough alcohol. He wonders about making it, despite being fully aware it'd be a glass of brandy with a spiced cream garnish. Bruce drinks it even though it bucks up against his preferences, too sweet and cloying, because it seems correct, and because he's pretty sure Marta Kent could get him to eat sandpaper with bit of broken glass if she offered it to him.
Richard would like it.
Brains are the worst.
"What am I doing here?" he asks, when they're outside on the porch watching the snow come down in fat flakes. Ostensibly to take the dog out. He knows it's Clark behind him, not Martha; footsteps. Clark. What am I doing here.
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He sort of knows how she feels, does Clark, but lacking a tail to wag, he just fidgets with what he brought out with him. There's only one person in the world he might wrap a present with black paper for. It's of modest size, a little crumpled. Soft.
"Still figuring that out myself," he says, with hapless honesty.
Except he has a few ideas. Saying them out loud, even if invited to, strikes him as awfully presumptuous.
"But you don't hate it."
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What he hates: that Clark can read him like that, already. He tells himself it's because Clark can probably detect his pulse and his breathing and the tension in the depths of his muscles or whatever other neuron-firing atomic-level bullshit that his alien senses allow him to observe like an expression on his face. But if it's any of that, then it's only a little. Clark has known him for barely any amount of time, and yet he still knows him, and it is so infuriating.
Bruce has decided something. Foolishly, but inevitably. He's going to--
Stop short when he turns to look at Clark, catching the being-fidgeted-with wrapped item. His eyebrows go up.
Stepping into an alternate universe where he has no control over the things that come out of his mouth, Bruce says, "I don't really need anything. I mean, I - probably own whatever store most people would pick something up from, I'm kind of an awful anomaly about it, it's-- stupid. Uhm." An in this horrible alternate universe, he doesn't even have the dignity to not say uhm or have it sound like he's being an asshole. No, he sounds as nervous an suddenly off-kilter as he did in Russia, I don't-- not--
Somewhere out there is a universe where he's not a complete tool. Bruce looks back out a that the snow, and Shelby, and is glad he's not the type to turn red. (New Jersey accent voice: Ffffuuuuuuck.)
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"Bruce," is a little laughed. Steam in the air, from between perfectly aligned white teeth. "Trust me, I absolutely realised the 'man who has everything' factor, so just-- here." He manages not to say it's stupid, so don't worry, because surely Bruce can come to that conclusion on his own.
He holds it out.
(It's socks, he got him socks. Not practical socks, nothing that Bruce could hope to fit into his most generous of bat boots, but the woolly, curl up at the fireplace kind of socks that require some degree of homebody relaxation to be appreciated.
They are black, with yellow bats. Wintry Halloween fair.)
"Bat guy," he says, clumsily, around when Bruce actually opens it.
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He's being incredibly insulting, or he would if he'd managed to get that out without tripping over himself like a tongue-tied kid, and what does Clark do-- just laughs, hands him the gift anyway. Bruce is powerless to do anything but accept it and peel back the somber wrapping paper (that he found black wrapping paper is so hilariously detailed, who does that). And then Bruce is holding what might as well be knockoff merch of his own phantasm persona, holding fuzzy socks, and staring at them, dumbfounded.
You have to abort, a voice in his head tells him, of the thing he'd decided to do. It's a reasonable, logical voice. You had a window thirty seconds ago before this element was in play, but it's closed and you can't, now, because you're never going to hear the end of it. He's going to decide the bat-socks are were a factor, just to drive you up a wall. You know this.
Well, yeah, he thinks. But the socks are kind of a factor, now.
Whatever argument the reasonable voice might have had (probably That's even more reason to stop you absolute moron), he never lets himself get there. Bruce looks up, reaches out with the hand not holding socks and crumpled black paper, fits his work-worn fingers around the back of Clark's neck - against the soft hair at the base of his skull, his thumb at the edge of his jaw. There's a heatbeat of time that accounts for traversing the space between them - a few feet apart, an extra few vertical inches to clear. Plenty of time for Clark to stop him or punch him in the face. Bruce kisses him.
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He remembers standing in the store and locating the socks by chance and not even thinking twice about how this is definitely the perfect gift for Bruce Wayne, and maybe had he played out the actual giving of it in his mind somewhere between there and standing at the register with these socks and Barry's shirt, he might have come up with something else. Because he wouldn't have anticipated that hand at the back of his neck, and Bruce suddenly close.
And tipping up his chin to meet the kiss when it comes.
Surprised, despite that instinct, heart doing a flip. Clark hovers his hands at his sides before landing them gently on Bruce's arms. Fingers close on folds of fabric, smooth them out again with the warm flat of his palms. Beyond that, he honestly does not do much, maybe enough to inspire a withdraw, but doesn't allow it, closing the space of a millimetre's give with the soft pressure of participatory kiss.
As he'd imagined doing, replaying that one strange encounter a handful of times with the occasional deviation.
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Except for now. Now, when the only roughness is the faint scrape of his artful five o'clock shadow against Clark's perfect skin, and when Bruce doesn't push at all until the younger man shifts into it. Even then it's soft, barely more than tentative. Like maybe he'll break this spell by being himself, and so he's careful, lips only parting once he's thought about it specifically, seeking out the core of that unearthly warmth.
His other hand finds his side, padded by woolen socks and the faint crinkle of paper.
He didn't think it was possible for them to be this way with each other. When they'd been sparring, in that moment when he knew, Bruce had figured it would be like his most prominent dreams (and nightmares). Violent. Clashing. Clawing for the energy that had bloomed with such fire between them-- and would that be bad? It was passionate, after all, and he thought if they'd have anything it would be an extension of that-- getting each other out of their systems, or worsening the addiction, who knows.
This is something else entirely.
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well, just that. Walled off, disguised, stolen.
This is better than that, certainly.
(He is dimly aware of Shelby, now up on the porch and out of the ice, and absolutely not aware of Martha Kent checking out the curtain that neither man froze to death at any point, eyebrows going up, mouth pinched into a half-smile and very carefully letting lacy hangings back into place. Alright then.)
His hands, unmanicured and rugged and manful, find places to be on Bruce's ribcage, curled high against his shoulder, only just resisting the temptation to press his palm over that resting heart rate. Warmth radiates mainly from the torso outwards, stifling in their close contact, but spread through his skin, his hands, and between them in open mouthed kissing, the slightly clumsy bump of teeth and lips as Clark figures out this somewhat new angle. Maybe it's an illusion in the chill.
Clark opens his eyes on a slight delay when there is a moment's break, eventually, a slightly anxious flick of his eyes as he reads Bruce's, left to right. But a smile upticks the corner of his mouth, anxiety not being thr right word, probably.
Shelby puts her cold nose at the back of Bruce's leg.
"You're welcome," because it's definitely about the socks.
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That this is happening at all after what Bruce has done to him feels unreal. It's only the lack of horror that tells him it isn't a dream, for his subconscious, clever as it might be, is too disdainful to ever bribe him with a fantasy without suffering.
Clark says You're welcome and Bruce twitches one brow up, looking back into his eyes - it's a shame that it's too dark out here to really see the dual color of them, but he's plenty beautiful as-is standing in the moonlight. Instead of trying for some kind of sassy comeback he tips his head forward for another kiss, and this time he lets the barest edge of withheld roughness bleed through. Desirous and thorough and with a ghosting imprint of white teeth at his lower lip when he pulls away.
There's an awkward, un-Bat-like shuffle, getting socks from his off-hand to the one at Clark's neck. Freed, he pats Shelby's head.
"I'm in the middle of something," he rumbles at the dog. Thump thump. Her tail happily whacks the porch railing.
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It certainly eliminates some foolish smiling, kiss catching on teeth and blood stirring. It's over quick, Clark borderline swaying back towards it before re-centring, soberly finding himself staring at Bruce's profile. Impervious to socks and shuffles and Shelbys. He's not entirely sure what he would do with Bruce in any kind of long term plan, but he knows that if this is the last time they have physical closeness, this specific kind of intimacy
well he is less convinced of that, now, but still. As soon as Bruce's attention strays back off his dog, Clark pushes back in by planting his hand on the side of the other man's face and unstoppably drawing him back in for round two, a more heated and assertive version on his end of things. Momentum might push them both a little off-balance, if it was possible to be off-balance when you're Superman. A steadying hand on Bruce's chest.
"What're you doing for New Years?" is a line, once it's done.
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But the way Clark leans after him when they part is gratifying - the way he pulls him back for more far beyond just gratification. Bruce is human, so fragile in comparison to a Kryptonian, but perhaps the most solid human he'll have ever leaned into. He doesn't go anywhere near off-balance, though if Clark is paying attention, he'll be able to hear - feel? - his heartbeat, made so much quicker, breath made almost shallow, warmth flushing through him that has nothing to do with the solarpowered man he's holding. Being held by.
He's abandoned Shelby to grip Clark's side, letting them slip closer to each other like-- gravity, like magnets, like the tide and the rocks it breaks against. Like, for a less dramatic image, two people who want to be near.
And. Then. Bruce tilts his head back a little, giving Clark a narrow-eyed, incredulous look in the colored Christmas light glow. "Do you need to reschedule?"
Is now a bad time. Or something.
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"Just filling up your dance card."
Preemptively. You're meant to kiss on the stroke of midnight. Clark has seen movies.
There's little room between them, now. Just the padding of winter garments, and Clark's own hyperawareness easily circumventing conventional layers like wool and cotton and skin. The hand settled to brace against Bruce's chest relaxing a little, fingertips tracking along weave.
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"Oh," he says, like it's a complete sentence. Oh, all right, and-- there's more, but it's overwritten by another kiss, because even if the way this exchange is going suggests a trajectory past tonight, what if it never happens? What if this is the only time? Clark could come to his senses, or Bruce could develop willpower. This is, after all, a terrible idea.
"Nothing." On New Year's, he's not doing anything. Said mostly against Clark's lips, still pressed close. "It's too cold for anyone to try anything in Gotham, I usually have the night off."
January on the eastern seaboard, every crook, big and small, too intimidated by the weather to bother with anything with the city blanketed in snow and ice. (Well, maybe Victor*, but he retired before Bruce had, the first time. Maybe he'll tell Clark about it someday.)
Speaking of freezing, Bruce should be just that. But Clark is so warm.
* Fries
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He, too, is settling into the way their bodies fit together, a hand laying now on the back of Bruce's neck and the other keeping him anchored with a handful of shirt.
The snow comes down harder. That Martha has not interrupted them indicates to Clark that she knows not to, but this thought is shelved firmly before he can weigh in on it or act on it. What he does react to is the sound of the dog door suddenly swinging as Shelby gives up on these losers, turning to look.
Let's go to Tibet and find a yurt to make out in.
"We should probably go inside now."
It's a stilted way to say that. Specific. Maybe Bruce's way of saying words is catching, transferable via open mouthed kisses. Maybe Clark just wants to find a phrase that can't be loopholed into meaning that they should go inside and never so much as make eye contact again. But there is humour, crinkled at the corners of his eyes, present in ever-ready smile. He doesn't let go, but he does open up his embrace so that it's not an accidental man of steel cage.
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"And pretend we've been talking about the weather for an hour?"
He's got jokes.
He's also got-- this last thing, before he steps away (which feels terrible, for a moment). Bruce nuzzles against him, faint sound of stubble audible in the chilly air, and kisses his jaw near the curve of it, nose pressing just behind his ear. It would be fine, he thinks, to stand out here until he can't feel his feet for the cold - to discover if it's possible to leave Clark's invulnerable lips kiss-reddened, to memorize the taste of his mouth on an atomic level.
Going inside and not looking like complete lunatics or twitterpated teenagers is fine, too.
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Quippiness of this line utterly spoiled with distraction, because what the fuck. The gentleness mingled with intimacy almost has Clark reversing that subtle withdraw, the desire to luxuriate in gentle touches and the slightly assumptive, soft way Bruce is going about all this is a powerful deterrent against going inside. It's ridiculous. What the fuck is wrong with him. All he does is kind of go still, then tip his head to bump temple to Bruce's in slightly doggish affection.
They go inside. Martha is doing a pretty good impression of having not seen anything, although the slightly evasive eye contact with Clark in specific while they do the last of the dishes is confirmation enough and he feels-- like he should probably want to die about it, but abstractly does not.
Probably 'cause she's still smiling like that at Bruce as she shows him to the guest room they've prepared, asking if he's got all he needs. Good enough.
They turn in early, relatively speaking. It's cold and deeply dark, anyway, and Clark lies in his old room and listens to Martha easing into her early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine slumber. He is busy staring fixedly at the ceiling. Thinks about calling Lois. Hey, you know that thing we talked about? I have some developments. But how're the folks? That's it, for people he could talk to, with his mom asleep, and Diana still qualifies as Bruce's friend, anyway.
So that's fine. He's just regressed into his sixteen-year-old self, lying where he's lying now, thinking about every stupid thing he'd managed to say to Lana Lang that day.
Bed springs shift, a half-motion towards getting out of bed. He redirects his focus to the guest room, mostly just to confirm if Bruce is also awake, or if he's turned into a pumpkin with promptness. Bare feet silent where they touch down, gravity whatever he makes of it, he goes to step out into the cold, dark hallway.
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Bruce casts a glance at Clark when it's decided - surprised, a little, and somewhat apologetic like Oh that's right, of course Smallville runs on normal, sane person time. He will not be sleeping, and not only because of the electrical current under his skin that's lingered even after uncoupling from Clark and returning indoors.
And not only because he's a graveyard shift person in general. He stares at his phone-- at the reminders in text form (easy for Alfred to say, he's still allowed to speak to him), at the number still at the top of his speed dial, several years and new phones on, always programmed in, always carried over. The number whose last contact is an outgoing, unconnected call dated exactly twelve months ago. (It used to be a gap of nine months, between his birthday and the holiday season, but that fell by the wayside; a concession to I'd prefer it if you stopped calling.)
He should. Stop calling.
It rings, and hits voicemail. The recorded playback is a cheery, male voice, vowels flattened by the same dialect Bruce only rarely exhibits. The sound of it would not reach anyone else's ears, but, well. Circumstances are what they are. You've reached Richard Grayson! Who is using this name now to avoid having a voicemail box that sounds like you misdialed and got a phone sex line. Tell me all your secrets and I'll get back to you!
'It's me.' (He knows who it is. He hasn't blocked Bruce's number, though he could. Maybe that's a sign.) 'I'm sure you heard... well, maybe not. I don't know what you talk about. Alfred's in England, and I'm in Kansas. Not snowed in at Wichita airport or anything, either. It's...' (Silence.) 'You'd like it. There's a dog.' (More silence.) 'Happy Christmas.'
Click.
Happy, not merry, because he was raised by an Englishman. Whatever. Bruce lets out a breath and tosses his phone on his bag, desultory. Parent of the fucking year. He did not speak loudly, not wanting to disrupt Martha - and he did not take the call outside, knowing that if Clark wanted to eavesdrop, he could do so from a solar-system away. Does he care if the younger man listened in? ... He's not sure.
There's no tell-tale sound of shifting weight or ungainly footsteps to alert him to anyone's nearness, but Bruce turns his head to look at the closed door anyway, almost expectant. Ninja senses, perhaps.
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The homework itself does not fit what he knows, now, of either Batman or Bruce Wayne.
Silence, then. Go back to bed. Clark imagines doing that, lying awake, stiflingly conscious of Bruce also lying awake. A Christmas nightmare.
He gently brushes his knuckles against the door, a tap to announce his presence before his hand goes to the door handle, easing his way inside when he's not immediately told to go away. Shorts and T-shirt make up his pyjamas, all loose on him, all nondescript. He does, in fact, own some of his own merch in pyjama form, in jokey and adorable, and he's left it in Metropolis, thank god.
"I heard you not sleeping," is his explanation, that easy, midwestern blend of amused and apologetic at the same time.
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Kid.
He's not ashamed, Dick isn't a secret, he just isn't sure how to bring it up. Or why he would. It's probably not relevant. But he figures Clark knows on some level, anyway, being an investigator. It's just, you know, weird, that single parent is on the list of improbable shit about Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne who should look like someone's been cut out of a fashion magazine and pasted into a John Deere one in this small room. And yet he manages to blend in, wearing dark green plaid pajama pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, sitting on the edge of the guest bed, perfectly awake.
"I hate Christmas," is what he says, reasonably.
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He invites himself in further, despite that look, all the way to taking a seat for himself at the edge of the bed, mattress dipping beneath dense weight.
"Me too," he says, unbelievably, given black wrapping paper and table setting and the entire evening, and doesn't let the statement stand unqualified for long. The timbre of his voice is always a little deeper when he's being quiet. Warmer. "Used to, I mean, because I missed it. The times I couldn't come home, you know, 'cause of the money and the distance, or just." Or just.
That he couldn't. Shame and guilt. He has no earthly idea what lies between Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson, but he knows there's tons of reasons a kid might not pick up the phone when his parent calls him, even on Christmas.
Like maybe it's late and he's partying, Clark doesn't know, but knows enough to assume maybe not just that. A natural inclination to keep something unsaid has him just shrugging a little, letting his own recollection go implied.
"I'm glad you made it out. Three's not a crowd, here. I know mom's been wanting to do something nice." For you. For Christmas. Either or.
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Still. Personally, he appreciates the commiseration. The or just.
Bruce's hand finds his. He wouldn't do this if Clark seemed like he would tense up or pull away, if Clark had a sliver of reservation about this being his mother's house with her in it. Please push me away some part of him begs, like Superman can save him from this, too.
"When I was an angry kid," opposed to the angry adult he is now, yes, "I would resent people who got into fights with or had tension with their parents. Because they didn't know what they had." He turns Clark's hand, palm up, trails his fingertips over the creases in his skin. "Now when I imagine things, I wonder about the kind of fights we'd get into. And it's kind of beautiful to see it in other people, I think, especially when things work out in the end.
"I'm glad I came."
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His hand is pliable and he watches Bruce map out lines with rough fingertips, nerves tingling. Not desensitised, even if he maybe should be, for how often he gets thrown through walls. He starfishes his fingers out, folds them back over Bruce's knuckles. Exactly what Bruce didn't want, all according to plan.
Inside his chest, his heart wrings a little, and his gaze lifts up, unshy about proximity.
He feels a twinge; inevitable, given topics. He had frequent fights with dad in those weird later years, one he never got to finish, or work it out in the end. It's not the first time he's felt this twinge, and it doesn't stall him, not anymore, it just passes through like a cold wind until it's gone. He strokes his thumb down the edge of Bruce's.
"You'd be welcome to stay. It'll get kind of hectic," admittedly. He doesn't imagine it'll be Bruce's scene, especially if he hates more of Christmas than just the heart pangs it brings about. So he adds, crooked smile, "But now's just fine."
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What are you talking about, Bruce would say, to Clark. You're here. Your mother's here. You love each other. It's worked out.
"I'm just as appealing at parties when I'm not pretending as when I am," Bruce tells him, a little wry. He can't play the socialite asshole, here, just the kind of asshole he is naturally, and that leads to a problem which is self-evident in the wording. Bruce sees no reason to end up causing difficulties with their friends due to his lack of personable graces; at best, he'd be a silent, awkward addition. Maybe Clark thinks he wouldn't mind, that Bruce's company would be worth the strangeness, and that is-- dangerous. And overly optimistic. Clark will mind, in action.
Now's just fine.
Bruce wants to kiss him. It's obvious in the way his fingers are linked against Clark's, the way his pulse has evened out after that phone call only to subtly tick up again. But he hesitates, like maybe it wouldn't be welcome. Like there's any clearer sign than Clark sitting in bed with him in his underwear.
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That's reductive, Clark would say, to Bruce.
To be honest, practice of pulling his mind out of the past is a reflex, and he's currently smiling a little at the idea of Bruce Wayne, billionaire persona and all, suffering a Christmas morning with a dozen unimpressed midwesterners. What he actually expects to happen is that Bruce's company would be worth the actual strangeness that would happen instead, that there's nothing wrong with that.
Instead of pressing the point, he just listens to heart rates without breaking eye contact, smile dimming. Doesn't mind the hesitation, because it gives him an opportunity to reach out. He slides his hand from Bruce's, only to touch fingertips to jaw, feeling the rough texture of stubble that's been haunting him since the first kiss, and the last. He's going to develop some Pavlovian instincts out of this, he can tell.
Realises he's looking at Bruce's mouth, trains his eyes back upwards, and then leans in to kiss. It feels different, doing that here; slower and sleepier, like they've been doing it forever.
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