Nervous raccoon hands. Bruce holds him more securely again, returns his kiss, but with much more care. Trying to think about tipsy first-timers instead of his own tried and true routines. He nuzzles close, winds his arms around him, protective. Resists the urge to ask Are you sure you're all right, sweetheart? for eight hundred million reasons, but mostly because he's sure Clark has no idea if he's all right or not.
Heart beats. Soft kisses. Why is everything that happens to you my fault?
Bruce is so gentle with him as he comes down from everything, definitely more in control of himself after that stop-start moment. He's nervous still even when the readings even out and Clark's left simply tired, too nervous to allow him to take a shower for fear of temperature changes impacting his blood pressure, instead simply herding him to bed. Bruce's. He leaves the glass clear instead of setting the dimmers, so that when the sun rises, it'll find Clark right away.
Sleep is for people who aren't paranoid over their drunk alien boyfriends.
And Clark sleeps deeply, when sleep does find him.
Wakes up, and, wholly unfairly, feels perfectly fine. Sort of. There's no violent hangover to contend with, and the strange sleepiness that had captured him towards the end has been siphoned off through rest. Maybe a little like not every cobweb has been cleared out of the corners of his mind, but most of them. Less and less, as he elbows up to sit in bed, back curled, sunlight striking skin.
Maybe in need of a shower, just for the warm reassurance of it.
Memories that aren't recalled with pristine detail are fairly rare. Dreams are like this, a little blurry around the edges. But he can recall enough, enough of his own behaviour, to compel him to rub his hands in his face and sink back down among the pillows and covers, a groan levering out of him from low in his chest. Almost a laugh, on the back of it.
He remembers, too, Bruce being gentle. Bruce being caring. Bruce kissing him. These recollections are nice to have, and also not quite enough to immediately counter the embarrassment of the behaviour that invited it.
There's no telltale sound of a heartbeat speeding up, no breath becoming shorter, but something clenches in Bruce's chest anyway at the sight of Clark waking up. For a while he'd lain in bed with him, curled up with him, petted his hair and his back, pressed kisses against his forehead until he fell asleep, and even after. But he'd been too restless, and now, finds himself sitting in a chair nearby.
Which he rises from, making no effort to be a soundless ninja (not only because it would be pointless), and sits on the side of the bed. One broad hand finds Clark's back, running up his spine, into his hair.
"Good morning," he says, sounding rough from sleeplessness. There's something restrained about him today, still tactile enough, but a little withdrawn. Tired. He was so fucking worried.
Better morning, markedly improved, but all the way into good is to be determined. Still, Clark immediately relaxes a little as Bruce touches him, hands dropped from his face as he rolls over. Nuance will be lost on him for the next few seconds, the space given, the reserve, and he reaches out to lay a hand on Bruce's knee, a gentle clasp. "I don't remember being that tired in a long time. Firsts for everything."
A deep breath out, readjusting his head on the pillow to look at Bruce. To squint at Bruce. "You don't look much better." His next inclination is to pull Bruce down for some insistent, lazy morning cuddling, maybe the kind that lapses into sleep, but he's observant enough that he doesn't immediately initiate this.
He sits up, instead. Leans in, without really doing the things yet he's inclined to do: like nudging his head against Bruce's shoulder, or nuzzling that spot beneath his ear, or kissing. Just peering.
It's almost unbelievable, how much Bruce wants him. How badly he wants to crawl over him and press down, to press kisses into his mouth and onto his warm skin and assure himself that he's whole and fine and no wounds have bloomed anew, brought back like digging up bones in a graveyard. How desperately he wants to hear Clark sigh, feel his chest when his breath hitches, experience the flushed heat of him.
Bruce knows what that is. The shape of the word of it, the impossible truth of how he feels.
His hand smooths over Clark's hair, and his gaze skitters to one side. Looking at the clock on the bedside table, maybe. (No bottles, not of alcohol, not of prescriptions. Cleared away somewhere, whenever he knows Clark will be present.)
"You should take a shower. Alfred'll be getting breakfast going soon."
Bruce withdraws his hand. Stands up. Gives Clark space and privacy - he knows where the bathroom is, how to use the overdesigned shower, where a spare change of his own clothes will be stashed (and that he's free to fish something out of Bruce's if he'd prefer). The Bat makes himself scarce, as if haunting his own home.
Every part of Clark wants to reach out before Bruce can slip away, and reclaim that hand. Drag him in, or offer to share the overdesigned shower, but then, it's not exactly the conventional intimacy that such a thing implies that he wants, so much as he doesn't want to be apart. He should, however, want space and privacy, and it's a ridiculous enough impulse to go stifled in the face of practicality -- showers, breakfast -- that Clark doesn't.
Only just.
He showers, dresses, feels a little better in his own civilian clothes, some khakis and a plaid shirt, buttoned. When he retrieves breakfast, he finds himself mostly alone, a little residue embarrassment seeing him out of Alfred's hair quickly after some uttered, sincere apologies. When Bruce does not come back to him, Clark thinks maybe this is the part where he goes home. He fidgets with his glasses without yet putting them on.
And instead, he follows that sound of a distinct heartbeat under the ground. His feet are bare, still, his hair a little wet, the subtle grain that had started to darken his chin lasered away. Pauses, when he sees him, hovering (not literally) at the edges, restlessly tapping folded non-prescription glasses against his palm.
Memories of Bruce being so tender are just that. He is somewhere very different, today, emotionally. Screen before him busy with work, line of his shoulders straight and cold. Fingers pause on keys and Bruce realizes just how angry he is. He is several miles pas angry, actually, which is surprising. He'd thought he'd lost the capacity to feel so intensely this side of the spectrum, about Clark, and experiencing it is at once freeing as it is sickening.
There's nothing he can say that will impress his fear and worry on Clark-- the way he'd acted says it with more sincerity and grace than Bruce will ever have the vocabulary to describe. He hadn't been able to let him out of the circle of his arms, much less out of his sight. Clinging to him, whispering endearments, like he never does, fucking never, because it leaves him too vulnerable. But that's it. That's his heart being removed from his chest and handed to Clark, warm and wet and still beating.
"Your judgement is seriously impaired," he says, and there's nothing warm about him now. Bruce turns around in his chair, his gaze stony. "I don't mean the neurotoxin. I mean the fact that you bulldozed into a situation you knew nothing about - a situation that I had under control - and escalated it. Those hostages weren't in play before you arrived. The toxin being released wasn't in play before you arrived. You made a decision based on my heartbeat that nearly got people killed - got one person shot - and exposed you to an element that significantly impacted your physiology.
Too quiet, too gentle, probably, slipped in the midst of Bruce's words after bulldozed and then swept away in their current as Clark stops and listens. Surprise that borders on confusion characterises his alert stillness, the fidget gone from his hands as well. And then, the almost dizzying realisation that yes, he'd admitted what drew him to the site, and the idea of hurt civilians as his fault piercing through that haze like a dart.
It's a lot, condensed and succinct, and so he is quiet for a second. Another second. Processing. "My judgement," he repeats, then shakes his head, clearing it, restarting. "It was already escalating, Bruce. That's why I heard you, that's why I flew there. That's why I landed. You're saying that with that many guys with guns," he did it, "your plan was, all along, to engage them like that?"
Part of him doesn't think it's the right call, to spar with Bruce on this point, but it's at least one means of getting his bearings.
Bruce's expression changes fractionally, but it's not to soften. Looking at Clark almost incredulously, a silent question there. What exactly do you think I do every night? Maybe slightly skewed towards offended that Clark thinks he couldn't have handled it.
"I don't actually spend all my time beating up defenseless kids in slums, or whatever your article was going to say." - is petty.
He pushes himself to his feet, steps closer.
"I've been doing this for decades. I don't need backup. Not in Gotham. My city is not for you, or the Justice League, or anyone else to come meddle in. And what--"
What. His voice catches and he pauses, reining in some darker, angrier coil of emotion. A tangible one.
"What was going to happen if that toxin didn't wear off? What if it was something worse?"
Clark's expression flickers, initially, hesitating like he wants to say more, like that's not what I meant, for instance. Stills this impulse. He's been here before, helpless in the face of worry. He's survived a nuclear warhead detonating virtually up his ass in the vacuum of space. But being unafraid of everything never seems to help.
Sometimes it makes it worse. And that he's been here before, helpless in the face of worry, is something he's only ever associated with Lois Lane--
He wishes they were closer. That he could just make it right, with his hands.
"I'm not sorry I came in," he says, and approaches anyway. "I know you can handle yourself, you're--" A sigh out, like he can't articulate what he thinks Bruce is, capability distilled. Not invincible, but impossible. "It looked like ambush from where I was flying, so I responded. But I'm sorry that I-- I'm sorry I scared you."
He doesn't say, it won't happen again. He'd like it to not happen again. It could easily happen again.
Clark apologizes and, inexplicably, Bruce looks even more angry. Like an insult has been thrown in his face-- Clark's audacity at acknowledging something Bruce is, in the (proverbial) light of day, apparently ignoring for the life of him. The way he clung to him, kissed him, whispered You scared the shit out of me. You're still scaring the shit out of me. Please don't do that again.
He feels exposed. It's awful. Something in his eyes shutters, drawing away from a wound. Slipping behind walls.
"Ambushes happen."
Bruce isn't going to back up, even with Clark drawing nearer. He's practically bristling with agitation, looking like he should be pacing or like Clark should be spontaneously lighting on fire from the force of his unhappy glare.
"You aren't responsible for me. It's not your place. And it's-- fuck, Clark."
Emotion cracking through, suddenly, anger and something like grief, but he doesn't move, doesn't reach out even though his hands curl into fists.
"I can't tell Lois you're dead or permanently impaired over me."
It'll probably sink in even more, later. Right now, all of the events of last night feel like a raw dream, as yet unanalysed, save for that he'd noticed when Bruce's behaviour changed. But instinct leads him closer, until they're not so far apart, now. Even with relaxed, more human vision, he can see details, eye shadows, rough grain of unshaven jaw. The cracks forming.
"I know," he says. I understand that. But.
Does it change anything? He's not sure. "It wasn't your fault, Bruce. Not me coming to find you, or me handling the neurotoxin. But I wanna look out for you, okay? That's not me being impaired, because I want you to look out for me too." He dimly remembers they spoke like this, last night: of heart beats and satellites.
The hand not clutching his glasses finally breaches personal space, touches warm fingertips to Bruce's wrist, above that closed fist.
"I can try and stay out of Gotham. If that's what you want, until you-- don't want that."
"Yes. I want you to stay out of Gotham. Because no one calls Senate hearings over me looking out for them."
An abysmally low blow. Heartless, practically. But Bruce's anger is so sincere, in this moment, feeling like a cornered animal. He jerks his wrist away and turns from Clark, emotion evident in every tense muscle.
"It is my fault. Because I never should have started anything. But it's your fault, too, for not seeing how much of a bad call it was."
(What's the bad call? Flying in to save Batman? Not decking Bruce when he kissed him?
Both?)
Something like panic grips his heart, and for a moment, Bruce feels like it's stopped completely before skittering on, overfast. He's suffocating, vision narrowing, anxiety holding a knife between his ribs and twisting, yanking him into an attack.
Trying to, anyway. He breathes, slow. Tries to force images of Clark's lifeless form (Jason's, Talia's, his parents') out of his head.
Knowing -- thinking he knows -- what Bruce is doing here doesn't mean that Clark is immune. Words, all of them, sink in beneath his ribcage and weigh him down from the inside like gravity, just as paralysing and unhelpful as the urge to try to reach out again, and needing to curl his hands into fists to stop himself from doing that after Bruce has already twitched out of his touch. It's enough to think that maybe Bruce has a point about him.
Likewise, he can't help but notice: the deliberate cadence of slow breathing, the elevated heart rate, the other slightly obscure signals that indicate something wrong. Walking away feels a little like ignoring his heart beat across the continent.
"It can't not continue."
He moves, determined for eye contact at least, hands settling on the back of a chair pushed out from the monitors and desks. "Not really, 'cause you're not-- I know you don't want that. This, what you're doing now. I hate that I did something to make it feel like a mistake but I promise it's not.
"You brought me back 'cause you thought I could help make the world safer, and it doesn't make sense that we can't do that together. And I want to. I never--"
A kernel of feeling catches in his throat, and the plastic and metal of the chair back squeaks a little under his hands.
"I never," more even, with conviction, "thought I'd meet someone like you. Not on earth."
He wants so badly for Clark to leave. He wants so badly to reach out to him and hold him, and make this exchange stop.
"I killed you."
A ragged breath in, something constricting his oxygen. Don't do this. Not now. Knock it off. You can regulate your heartbeat, why are you letting this happen? (Because you threw it out, replaced it with drinking and abusing prescriptions. Good fucking job.)
"You'll blame Luthor, or Zod's remnants in that creature, or your own choice, but that happened because of my failures. I can't-- I don't know how to fix you again, if something-- If I--"
Bruce is looking at him, finally, his expression a bizarre clash of desperation (hostility and affection at once) and something like incredulous disbelief. Like having a panic attack is really, really annoying, and he's going to have to talk to the manager about this unacceptable service being rendered.
The chair is urged aside, and it skitters off like ten feet with barely a nudge, somehow non-violent despite the casual display of great strength. Pain makes divots at Clark's brow, but not for some reminder about his own strange mortality, but for how wrong it feels for Bruce to say something like that. Bruce, who saved him, who did so in a way that didn't feel like he was summoning some Superman-shaped angel to save the day, but who put Clark back in those shoes. Who saved Martha, and brought Lois to him, and gave him back his home.
It's a lot to think and feel and impossible to articulate in this moment without sounding insane, and all the more frustrating because he didn't think this was brand new information, or minimised so much under the spectre of I killed you.
So Clark doesn't, you know, try. He steps forward though, suddenly right there, suddenly with his hands up and gentle against the sides of Bruce's face. It feels like a dangerously fine line, between being too much and overcorrecting into too little, but at a certain point, he generally follows his instinct.
"You brought me back," he says, steady, earnest, like he could make all this real simple, real fast, if Bruce would let him. "And this is where I wanna be. Don't send me away."
You brought me back is factual, and can be split into pieces; it's possible he wouldn't have been able to do it without Barry and Vic, it's more than possible that killing Bruce there on the lawn in front of the monument would have been completely justified. And there is where I wanna be could be true but-- but it shouldn't be and Clark has Lois, he'll--
Don't send me away is what gets him. His breath catches, he looks at Clark like something sharp has slipped in between his ribs and speared something vital.
His heartbeat is still wild, staring frozen at Clark captured in something like panic, but he doesn't pull away. Doesn't even flinch at the way his chair is batted to the side like an empty tin can - either he trusts Clark so implicitly that it doesn't occur to him to be nervous, or he's accepted whatever harm might come to him. (Probably both.)
"I don't know how to do this," is what he says eventually, strained.
Clark shakes his head, a mild inscrutable gesture, some of the urgency dissipating with it. Relaxing at the edges, mostly to show Bruce how that much is done. The edges of his thumbs trace cheekbone slopes, more tender and concerned than attempting to evoke anything other than calm.
"Me neither," he says. Admits, really. "We'll figure it out."
It still hurts a little, no matter if Bruce was just lashing out, if he meant none of it. The idea that Clark doesn't know what he's doing, that his judgment is impaired, that he has to stay out of Gotham. Bruises only, though, and it's enough to know that maybe they're not done here yet.
He takes a breath like he's gonna say more, but mostly just comes up with, "I'm sorry," again, and slips near to pull Bruce into an embrace proper, chin over shoulder.
It's a moment before Bruce begins to lose some of the tension in him, raising hands to Clark's elbows in something like a return of that hold. He still feels over-controlled, stilted, but he doesn't pulling away.
"I'm not going to turn into a nice person because you're apologizing," he points out. His breathing has evened out - forced as it is, counting heartbeats in his head, willing himself to calm down. Why the fuck can you leap off buildings and punch monsters in the face but this sends you for a loop? he berates himself, even though he knows full fucking well why. (Every so often, splintered memories of the therapist he'd been dragged kicking and screaming to as an eleven year old. Already too-smart, sounding too-adult, with a doctor looking over at him, uncanny in her observations, speaking to him like he was older, knowing that was the only way to get through. You have to deal with this. He didn't. He won't.)
"You fucked up. Do you understand. I don't need help unless I ask for it. And you can't-- be in that habit, Clark. I'm only going to deteriorate. You're going to have to let me fall."
Clark wants to hold on until Bruce does in return, at least properly, but he can recognise that the touch in return, this stillness, is a sharp difference to turned backs and twitched reactions. As Bruce speaks, he doesn't let go, a canine lean-in that's only heavy in a human kind of way, even if Bruce is probably both hyperaware enough and hyperfamiliar enough to sense the way any hold from Clark comes with practiced restraint.
"Okay," he says, finally, head still on shoulder until he finally lifts it, then. "But you have to ask for it."
As in, that has to be a thing that ever happens, says insistent tone. Not just a loophole of avoidance. He's only backed off enough for a semi-dignified speaking distance, arms looped around broad shoulders. "When you need it, you ask me."
Bruce Wayne, asking for help. Next, Superman will talk rocks into bleeding.
He doesn't respond right away. Staying where he is, letting Clark lean into him, the grip he has on the Kryptonian's arms becoming more pronounced. In fact, if he were holding a human like that, he'd probably be hurting them. There is something about it-- the fact that he can let go-- even knowing that Clark never can, that he has to be in such perfect control at all times, and now telling him Don't interfere, not even to save my life, is asking him to put more chains on that control--
Bruce lets out a breath, and tips his head in, finally leaning into him.
It feels almost ill-gotten, this acquiescence on both their parts, but Clark will take it. The alternative feels wrong, even more wrong than letting someone fall. Like letting himself fall.
But Bruce against him feels like relief, and he settles into the hold, fingers curling in a fold of fabric, breath felt against Bruce's neck. Familiar baking heat that seems to emanate from the core of him, transferred easily in the crush of their bodies together. His temple brushes against Bruce's, before he tips as if to--
Well he doesn't, actually, kiss him, and not for a lack of desiring to do so. Maybe remembering his witless pawing the night before, and deciding to welcome it rather than initiate.
"Good," he says, in the interim, fingertips finding where shirt collar ends and skin at the back of Bruce's neck begins.
Good, and some traitorous part of Bruce is so pleased for it, like he can just curl up in the warmth offered and be happy. He wants to-- he wants to so badly, with how much he loves Clark.
And that's it, that l-word. He loved Silver, and Talia, and Selina (and Harvey) and everyone just burns, falls apart, dies. Clark died. He doesn't think there'll be another chance to redo that, and should Clark be wasting it on someone like him? (But can he make himself stop? Fuck no, apparently, judging by right now.)
Bruce convinces himself to let go of Clark's elbows and shift his hold around his back, functioning a little bit more like a person instead of a very upset statue.
"The second you've had enough, you can back out," he tells him, his low voice quiet. "Promise me you won't force yourself."
So Clark is a little glad for the fact that at this angle, expressions can't be made out. Just gesture, the solid circle that Bruce's arms make around him -- and the thought that that may never have happened again feels more like the real close call, here -- and the quiet, low texture of his voice.
But it's a hell of a thing to say and he frowns at nothing, minuscule touches of his fingers and the comfortable warmth between them not back up. That feels like a lot to unpack for right now, but so long as they're setting down some boundaries, no matter how they might sound--
"I know," he says. "I promise. Bruce..."
He wants to tell Bruce it's going to be okay, but he doesn't want to give him something to disagree with. So Clark selects the kind of something he can't, and gently kisses his mouth. It's a steady moment of contact, controlled, borderline chaste if not for the intimate tangle of arms, shared body warmth and breathing.
Apologetic, "My turn. You need to get some sleep."
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Heart beats. Soft kisses. Why is everything that happens to you my fault?
Bruce is so gentle with him as he comes down from everything, definitely more in control of himself after that stop-start moment. He's nervous still even when the readings even out and Clark's left simply tired, too nervous to allow him to take a shower for fear of temperature changes impacting his blood pressure, instead simply herding him to bed. Bruce's. He leaves the glass clear instead of setting the dimmers, so that when the sun rises, it'll find Clark right away.
Sleep is for people who aren't paranoid over their drunk alien boyfriends.
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Wakes up, and, wholly unfairly, feels perfectly fine. Sort of. There's no violent hangover to contend with, and the strange sleepiness that had captured him towards the end has been siphoned off through rest. Maybe a little like not every cobweb has been cleared out of the corners of his mind, but most of them. Less and less, as he elbows up to sit in bed, back curled, sunlight striking skin.
Maybe in need of a shower, just for the warm reassurance of it.
Memories that aren't recalled with pristine detail are fairly rare. Dreams are like this, a little blurry around the edges. But he can recall enough, enough of his own behaviour, to compel him to rub his hands in his face and sink back down among the pillows and covers, a groan levering out of him from low in his chest. Almost a laugh, on the back of it.
He remembers, too, Bruce being gentle. Bruce being caring. Bruce kissing him. These recollections are nice to have, and also not quite enough to immediately counter the embarrassment of the behaviour that invited it.
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Which he rises from, making no effort to be a soundless ninja (not only because it would be pointless), and sits on the side of the bed. One broad hand finds Clark's back, running up his spine, into his hair.
"Good morning," he says, sounding rough from sleeplessness. There's something restrained about him today, still tactile enough, but a little withdrawn. Tired. He was so fucking worried.
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Better morning, markedly improved, but all the way into good is to be determined. Still, Clark immediately relaxes a little as Bruce touches him, hands dropped from his face as he rolls over. Nuance will be lost on him for the next few seconds, the space given, the reserve, and he reaches out to lay a hand on Bruce's knee, a gentle clasp. "I don't remember being that tired in a long time. Firsts for everything."
A deep breath out, readjusting his head on the pillow to look at Bruce. To squint at Bruce. "You don't look much better." His next inclination is to pull Bruce down for some insistent, lazy morning cuddling, maybe the kind that lapses into sleep, but he's observant enough that he doesn't immediately initiate this.
He sits up, instead. Leans in, without really doing the things yet he's inclined to do: like nudging his head against Bruce's shoulder, or nuzzling that spot beneath his ear, or kissing. Just peering.
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Bruce knows what that is. The shape of the word of it, the impossible truth of how he feels.
His hand smooths over Clark's hair, and his gaze skitters to one side. Looking at the clock on the bedside table, maybe. (No bottles, not of alcohol, not of prescriptions. Cleared away somewhere, whenever he knows Clark will be present.)
"You should take a shower. Alfred'll be getting breakfast going soon."
Bruce withdraws his hand. Stands up. Gives Clark space and privacy - he knows where the bathroom is, how to use the overdesigned shower, where a spare change of his own clothes will be stashed (and that he's free to fish something out of Bruce's if he'd prefer). The Bat makes himself scarce, as if haunting his own home.
no subject
Only just.
He showers, dresses, feels a little better in his own civilian clothes, some khakis and a plaid shirt, buttoned. When he retrieves breakfast, he finds himself mostly alone, a little residue embarrassment seeing him out of Alfred's hair quickly after some uttered, sincere apologies. When Bruce does not come back to him, Clark thinks maybe this is the part where he goes home. He fidgets with his glasses without yet putting them on.
And instead, he follows that sound of a distinct heartbeat under the ground. His feet are bare, still, his hair a little wet, the subtle grain that had started to darken his chin lasered away. Pauses, when he sees him, hovering (not literally) at the edges, restlessly tapping folded non-prescription glasses against his palm.
"Hey," is how he announces himself.
no subject
There's nothing he can say that will impress his fear and worry on Clark-- the way he'd acted says it with more sincerity and grace than Bruce will ever have the vocabulary to describe. He hadn't been able to let him out of the circle of his arms, much less out of his sight. Clinging to him, whispering endearments, like he never does, fucking never, because it leaves him too vulnerable. But that's it. That's his heart being removed from his chest and handed to Clark, warm and wet and still beating.
"Your judgement is seriously impaired," he says, and there's nothing warm about him now. Bruce turns around in his chair, his gaze stony. "I don't mean the neurotoxin. I mean the fact that you bulldozed into a situation you knew nothing about - a situation that I had under control - and escalated it. Those hostages weren't in play before you arrived. The toxin being released wasn't in play before you arrived. You made a decision based on my heartbeat that nearly got people killed - got one person shot - and exposed you to an element that significantly impacted your physiology.
It's not acceptable."
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Too quiet, too gentle, probably, slipped in the midst of Bruce's words after bulldozed and then swept away in their current as Clark stops and listens. Surprise that borders on confusion characterises his alert stillness, the fidget gone from his hands as well. And then, the almost dizzying realisation that yes, he'd admitted what drew him to the site, and the idea of hurt civilians as his fault piercing through that haze like a dart.
It's a lot, condensed and succinct, and so he is quiet for a second. Another second. Processing. "My judgement," he repeats, then shakes his head, clearing it, restarting. "It was already escalating, Bruce. That's why I heard you, that's why I flew there. That's why I landed. You're saying that with that many guys with guns," he did it, "your plan was, all along, to engage them like that?"
Part of him doesn't think it's the right call, to spar with Bruce on this point, but it's at least one means of getting his bearings.
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Bruce's expression changes fractionally, but it's not to soften. Looking at Clark almost incredulously, a silent question there. What exactly do you think I do every night? Maybe slightly skewed towards offended that Clark thinks he couldn't have handled it.
"I don't actually spend all my time beating up defenseless kids in slums, or whatever your article was going to say." - is petty.
He pushes himself to his feet, steps closer.
"I've been doing this for decades. I don't need backup. Not in Gotham. My city is not for you, or the Justice League, or anyone else to come meddle in. And what--"
What. His voice catches and he pauses, reining in some darker, angrier coil of emotion. A tangible one.
"What was going to happen if that toxin didn't wear off? What if it was something worse?"
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Sometimes it makes it worse. And that he's been here before, helpless in the face of worry, is something he's only ever associated with Lois Lane--
He wishes they were closer. That he could just make it right, with his hands.
"I'm not sorry I came in," he says, and approaches anyway. "I know you can handle yourself, you're--" A sigh out, like he can't articulate what he thinks Bruce is, capability distilled. Not invincible, but impossible. "It looked like ambush from where I was flying, so I responded. But I'm sorry that I-- I'm sorry I scared you."
He doesn't say, it won't happen again. He'd like it to not happen again. It could easily happen again.
no subject
He feels exposed. It's awful. Something in his eyes shutters, drawing away from a wound. Slipping behind walls.
"Ambushes happen."
Bruce isn't going to back up, even with Clark drawing nearer. He's practically bristling with agitation, looking like he should be pacing or like Clark should be spontaneously lighting on fire from the force of his unhappy glare.
"You aren't responsible for me. It's not your place. And it's-- fuck, Clark."
Emotion cracking through, suddenly, anger and something like grief, but he doesn't move, doesn't reach out even though his hands curl into fists.
"I can't tell Lois you're dead or permanently impaired over me."
It'd destroy me. It'd destroy her.
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"I know," he says. I understand that. But.
Does it change anything? He's not sure. "It wasn't your fault, Bruce. Not me coming to find you, or me handling the neurotoxin. But I wanna look out for you, okay? That's not me being impaired, because I want you to look out for me too." He dimly remembers they spoke like this, last night: of heart beats and satellites.
The hand not clutching his glasses finally breaches personal space, touches warm fingertips to Bruce's wrist, above that closed fist.
"I can try and stay out of Gotham. If that's what you want, until you-- don't want that."
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An abysmally low blow. Heartless, practically. But Bruce's anger is so sincere, in this moment, feeling like a cornered animal. He jerks his wrist away and turns from Clark, emotion evident in every tense muscle.
"It is my fault. Because I never should have started anything. But it's your fault, too, for not seeing how much of a bad call it was."
(What's the bad call? Flying in to save Batman? Not decking Bruce when he kissed him?
Both?)
Something like panic grips his heart, and for a moment, Bruce feels like it's stopped completely before skittering on, overfast. He's suffocating, vision narrowing, anxiety holding a knife between his ribs and twisting, yanking him into an attack.
Trying to, anyway. He breathes, slow. Tries to force images of Clark's lifeless form (Jason's, Talia's, his parents') out of his head.
"This is too dangerous. It can't continue."
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Likewise, he can't help but notice: the deliberate cadence of slow breathing, the elevated heart rate, the other slightly obscure signals that indicate something wrong. Walking away feels a little like ignoring his heart beat across the continent.
"It can't not continue."
He moves, determined for eye contact at least, hands settling on the back of a chair pushed out from the monitors and desks. "Not really, 'cause you're not-- I know you don't want that. This, what you're doing now. I hate that I did something to make it feel like a mistake but I promise it's not.
"You brought me back 'cause you thought I could help make the world safer, and it doesn't make sense that we can't do that together. And I want to. I never--"
A kernel of feeling catches in his throat, and the plastic and metal of the chair back squeaks a little under his hands.
"I never," more even, with conviction, "thought I'd meet someone like you. Not on earth."
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"I killed you."
A ragged breath in, something constricting his oxygen. Don't do this. Not now. Knock it off. You can regulate your heartbeat, why are you letting this happen? (Because you threw it out, replaced it with drinking and abusing prescriptions. Good fucking job.)
"You'll blame Luthor, or Zod's remnants in that creature, or your own choice, but that happened because of my failures. I can't-- I don't know how to fix you again, if something-- If I--"
Bruce is looking at him, finally, his expression a bizarre clash of desperation (hostility and affection at once) and something like incredulous disbelief. Like having a panic attack is really, really annoying, and he's going to have to talk to the manager about this unacceptable service being rendered.
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It's a lot to think and feel and impossible to articulate in this moment without sounding insane, and all the more frustrating because he didn't think this was brand new information, or minimised so much under the spectre of I killed you.
So Clark doesn't, you know, try. He steps forward though, suddenly right there, suddenly with his hands up and gentle against the sides of Bruce's face. It feels like a dangerously fine line, between being too much and overcorrecting into too little, but at a certain point, he generally follows his instinct.
"You brought me back," he says, steady, earnest, like he could make all this real simple, real fast, if Bruce would let him. "And this is where I wanna be. Don't send me away."
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Don't send me away is what gets him. His breath catches, he looks at Clark like something sharp has slipped in between his ribs and speared something vital.
His heartbeat is still wild, staring frozen at Clark captured in something like panic, but he doesn't pull away. Doesn't even flinch at the way his chair is batted to the side like an empty tin can - either he trusts Clark so implicitly that it doesn't occur to him to be nervous, or he's accepted whatever harm might come to him. (Probably both.)
"I don't know how to do this," is what he says eventually, strained.
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"Me neither," he says. Admits, really. "We'll figure it out."
It still hurts a little, no matter if Bruce was just lashing out, if he meant none of it. The idea that Clark doesn't know what he's doing, that his judgment is impaired, that he has to stay out of Gotham. Bruises only, though, and it's enough to know that maybe they're not done here yet.
He takes a breath like he's gonna say more, but mostly just comes up with, "I'm sorry," again, and slips near to pull Bruce into an embrace proper, chin over shoulder.
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"I'm not going to turn into a nice person because you're apologizing," he points out. His breathing has evened out - forced as it is, counting heartbeats in his head, willing himself to calm down. Why the fuck can you leap off buildings and punch monsters in the face but this sends you for a loop? he berates himself, even though he knows full fucking well why. (Every so often, splintered memories of the therapist he'd been dragged kicking and screaming to as an eleven year old. Already too-smart, sounding too-adult, with a doctor looking over at him, uncanny in her observations, speaking to him like he was older, knowing that was the only way to get through. You have to deal with this. He didn't. He won't.)
"You fucked up. Do you understand. I don't need help unless I ask for it. And you can't-- be in that habit, Clark. I'm only going to deteriorate. You're going to have to let me fall."
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"Okay," he says, finally, head still on shoulder until he finally lifts it, then. "But you have to ask for it."
As in, that has to be a thing that ever happens, says insistent tone. Not just a loophole of avoidance. He's only backed off enough for a semi-dignified speaking distance, arms looped around broad shoulders. "When you need it, you ask me."
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He doesn't respond right away. Staying where he is, letting Clark lean into him, the grip he has on the Kryptonian's arms becoming more pronounced. In fact, if he were holding a human like that, he'd probably be hurting them. There is something about it-- the fact that he can let go-- even knowing that Clark never can, that he has to be in such perfect control at all times, and now telling him Don't interfere, not even to save my life, is asking him to put more chains on that control--
Bruce lets out a breath, and tips his head in, finally leaning into him.
"...Yeah."
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But Bruce against him feels like relief, and he settles into the hold, fingers curling in a fold of fabric, breath felt against Bruce's neck. Familiar baking heat that seems to emanate from the core of him, transferred easily in the crush of their bodies together. His temple brushes against Bruce's, before he tips as if to--
Well he doesn't, actually, kiss him, and not for a lack of desiring to do so. Maybe remembering his witless pawing the night before, and deciding to welcome it rather than initiate.
"Good," he says, in the interim, fingertips finding where shirt collar ends and skin at the back of Bruce's neck begins.
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And that's it, that l-word. He loved Silver, and Talia, and Selina (and Harvey) and everyone just burns, falls apart, dies. Clark died. He doesn't think there'll be another chance to redo that, and should Clark be wasting it on someone like him? (But can he make himself stop? Fuck no, apparently, judging by right now.)
Bruce convinces himself to let go of Clark's elbows and shift his hold around his back, functioning a little bit more like a person instead of a very upset statue.
"The second you've had enough, you can back out," he tells him, his low voice quiet. "Promise me you won't force yourself."
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So Clark is a little glad for the fact that at this angle, expressions can't be made out. Just gesture, the solid circle that Bruce's arms make around him -- and the thought that that may never have happened again feels more like the real close call, here -- and the quiet, low texture of his voice.
But it's a hell of a thing to say and he frowns at nothing, minuscule touches of his fingers and the comfortable warmth between them not back up. That feels like a lot to unpack for right now, but so long as they're setting down some boundaries, no matter how they might sound--
"I know," he says. "I promise. Bruce..."
He wants to tell Bruce it's going to be okay, but he doesn't want to give him something to disagree with. So Clark selects the kind of something he can't, and gently kisses his mouth. It's a steady moment of contact, controlled, borderline chaste if not for the intimate tangle of arms, shared body warmth and breathing.
Apologetic, "My turn. You need to get some sleep."