It isn't that Clark looks like he's got a hair out of place. That suit is made out of something he's never been able to identify, alien in origin, and clearly unbothered by anything as mundane as dried seawater. To say nothing of Clark himself, who doesn't even have the decency to have the odd acne scar. But, you know. Strenuous work.
Bruce rises to his feet, strangely graceful like he always is despite the dimensions he occupies and the latticework of metal holding his spine together, and holds his hand out to the other man. Come on.
"Want me to pick, or do you want something in particular?"
He takes Bruce's hand, levers himself up, entertains himself in trying to simulate using the help at all which is in itself pure habit. There is still that scent of ocean clinging to his skin, his hair, less so the odd material of his suit. Better than smoke, gasoline, literal sewerage, ammonium nitrate, an assortment of past adventures he might get covered in, doing the work of saving lives.
On his feet, Clark can step in nearer and land a kiss next to Bruce's chin.
But on that note, as he steps away, reaching up to his collar to start detaching his cape, Clark adds, "Not seafood," with gentle emphasis and earnest eyebrows.
He doesn't need the help to stand, and that's not why Bruce reaches for him, clasps his hand tightly, shifts his weight in counter-balance to something he knows is acted. It's just to hold his hand; to be there, in the path of that nearer step, and the kiss that Clark drops before he skims by.
I don't know how to do this was always honest. I will learn, is, too.
"Alright, that should be easy." On an island in the Mediterranean where that's like the entire diet. But his sarcastic tone is all facade, and while Clark peels himself out of all that, Bruce browses and beepboops an order in via the local UberEats, watching. It's quite late but everything's still open, catering to tourists. Still, it's Europe, and food delivery will work on its own time. Superman will have been long de-supered by the time anything arrives.
"The last time I was in this region, I was fleeing an Italian crime syndicate who blamed a traveling companion of mine for the theft of a cat statue that was, allegedly, cursed."
The suit is disassembled into pieces (valid to note that there is a wobbly YouTube video out there of a fan managing to get him to confirm 'it's not a onesie' in a slightly taken aback manner, it's extremely funny) and stowed away carefully and out of sight. Who knows what could happen, but Clark could probably keep it in a travelling safe and still quick-change his way into superheroism in an emergency.
He comes to lean on the doorframe between living room and the short hallway that veins off to the bathroom, dressed in his normal earth underwear, arms folded, nary a bruise nor scratch on him, trying to imagine this particular escapade. His raises a curious eyebrow raising not at Italian crime syndicate or cursed cat statue, but traveling companion.
Still, Clark asks, "Was it?" Because he's willing to believe it, at this point, but would at least like verification.
There have been many types of companions, over the years. Clark knows about some of them from the cave's databases, and some of them from tabloids. Some from experience; awkward phone calls on Christmas, heckling from another cape. Could be anyone. Or no one. Chances are they're long dead, as many people who've become entangled with Bruce Wayne end up.
But—
He shrugs broad shoulders, setting his phone down on the end table by the sofa. "Dunno. Dropped it overboard."
Like an old lady visiting the Titanic. Bruce moves forward to join him, dark eyes drifting over his form. He says, "Maybe it'll turn up," because, you know, so much other shit is being coughed up. But it's clear he isn't thinking too hard about it.
"Uh huh," Clark says, holding his ground for the moment. "Maybe all this is your fault. Ever think about that?" Maybe the cursed cat was King Triton(?)'s final straw.
Ask him he if likes being looked at, given all the givens, and you'd probably get a hedgey kind of answer. Sure but who doesn't. Not in any special way. He spent plenty of time trying to pass invisibly through smalltown America that the searing attention that Superman gets makes for a hefty counterweight, all extremes, and somewhere in there was some guy who was quick to smile back if someone looked sideways.
But that's a little besides the point, and moreover: he discovered that he likes Bruce looking at him.
So the doofy humour seems to recede a little as Bruce heads on over, Clark's attention watching the track of his glance, and once in arms range he rolls his shoulder against the wall to turn and lead the way through to the bathroom. There, he wings on the tap to get the hot water thinking about happening.
"I like the beach," he volunteers, apropos of nothing, feeling the water temperature change. "The sea looks different when you're standing next to it. Like a friend, instead of how it actually is out there."
An underwater kingdom toppled by a piece of junk Bruce chucked in the ocean purely to annoy both sides of the argument he got stuck in, their quarrelling leaders out for revenge, looking for the sorcerer who cursed them. And it's just some guy. It's the kind of luck that would make sense following the series of events that manifested this very moment.
Handy, being so habitually rude to everyone, socially. How'd you two meet? in an airport bar helps no one.
It would be easy, for Bruce to fetishize Clark's physical perfection. His alienness; to look at him like a god. But instead, when he looks at the other man - sometimes like he's an idiot, but sometimes like now, simply admiring him - it's plain and intent. He is nice to look at, so he looks. He doesn't think Bruce's intensity is disconcerting, so he doesn't have to pretend he isn't.
"Like a friend." Bruce pulls his shirt off over his head. "You really did grow up in flyover country."
The water is running at room temperature and so they are well on their way. Clark strips down properly, giving a sober laugh at Bruce's observation. "Yessir," he says, helpfully buttering on the inflection just for the joke. "Beach holidays were something that happened on TV. And it wasn't even in my top five, leaving Kansas."
No, the novelty had been mountains, in contrast to the endless flat. He steps into the spray, letting it hit him in the face, quick to drag water through his hair which will dry wilder than the neat sidepart he wears it in.
"And Lo's not that interested. Something about being a redhead. She skis."
He looks back at Bruce, checking his progress, maybe a hint of apology for the chattiness. "Water's fine," he reports.
Lois is a hell of a woman, in anything she applies herself to. Work or snowbound sports. They saw little of each other, in the years between, but it's impossible to so much as observe Lois Lane and not be impressed. Further impossible to be involved like this, one step removed and sharing all kinds of cooties, and not imagine her and Clark. (They've flirted a little. Via texting. Bruce hasn't mentioned it but he's certain that Clark knows and that thought is somewhat erotic.)
So's the view, he doesn't say.
"Go on." No apology needed. He likes listening to you, Kansas. Meanwhile, unbuckling his belt.
He goes on also to clean himself down, eliminating the practical stuff even if he is superlistening to the familiar sounds of Bruce taking off his belt, clicking metal and slithering leather. As noted, it wasn't a visibly hard day at the office and all Clark has to clean away is the layer of exertion gathered beneath Kryptonian armor, and the saltwater dried behind his ears.
"And I was thinking about Tibet," Clark says, obliging in sharing his train of thought. It'd be easy to talk about Lois all day, and as much as he in unselfconscious in summoning her name even when standing naked in front of Bruce Wayne, manners dictate he pivots. "I've been doing my homework."
He just means the translation guidebook he got for that one Christmas. The prescribed homework, not the extra credit.
He turns, rinsing soap off his considerable shoulders, the ridiculous V of his back. "Maybe next time we need to get away, you could show me around."
"You'll like it," he says, stepping out of the remainder of his clothing, "but it'll bum you out, too."
What with China and all. But it's still an important place to Bruce, and he thinks Clark will appreciate the old-fashioned traditionalism. It's very midwest, in its way. (Also, at least half of the secret ninja cults are pretty cool.)
The shower is expansive, a blend of stereotypical but artfully applied blue and white tiles, plenty of room and only the suggestion of a need for a door. It makes slipping in beside Clark an easy affair of merely moving over, one broad hand smoothing over his forearm, up to his elbow, around his bicep, his touch little more than ghosting. Feeling the way the water pours over him. He pulls his hand away as he steps fully into the cubicle, standing behind Clark and then putting both hands on the small of his back, sweeping up the strong column of his spine, coming to the base of his skull and rubbing. There are never any knots of tension or sprained muscles, but that's no reason to never engage in this kind of touch.
Getting Bruce's agreement to spend time, to share in something, to keep furthering whatever they have along without protest, still comes with a hint of satisfaction. Minor, here, like the click of a puzzle piece going into place. The smile it brings around isn't visible from Bruce's angle. Privately there.
And then Bruce steps out of Clark's vision, which just means he has his other senses to go off of. The shift in temperature of another body near his, the ever present signal of his heartbeat, the general collection of auditory, sensory input that seems to operate on a subconscious level to give Clark the general physiological awareness of someone standing behind him.
He sighs out when Bruce's hands make their way up his spine, head bowing. Not all relief has to be physical. He is not tense, but that doesn't mean he can't relax a little more.
Bruce's words send his mind back to the thing he was saying, the ocean being a friend—but only from the perspective of the beach. He's seen the ocean a lot since he learned how to fly, more than making up for a landlocked childhood, and hovering between a lightning-forked sky and the roiling churn of the gigantic sea makes the earth seem like the strange and unknowable planet it's supposed to be for an alien. It's not all bad, it's not all good.
Clark is happy to soak up a backrub even after he's rinsed the last of the soap off his body, but eventually turns around, expression serene. His hands, reaching out to glide his palms over the muscle slabbed over Bruce's ribcage, this extreme control behind gentleness offset by the fact he can tug Bruce's considerable self to him just like
this
without any effort, a smile breaking across his face and only visible for a moment before he noses up under Bruce's jaw.
To dream about water symbolizes everything from transformation to repressed sexuality, Bruce might say. This entire detour is dreamlike; improbable, surreal, beautiful. It is a little bit transformative. And it is a little bit—
The other thing. At times. If only because a veil of caution still hangs between them, for Bruce. How often is too often, to reach for someone? How often is too often to reach for someone, who is married? I don't know how to do this, for many reasons, but one of those reasons was that this is not merely a sexual entanglement, which make up the lion's share of his intimate history.
How do I express my feelings, at all.
Resurrecting him was an ambitious step one. Granted.
This is also good. Sliding a hand over Clark's hair, cradling the back of his head. Nigh-invulnerable but he still feels completely normal beneath his hand, against his chest, poking at his jaw. Smiling radiantly. An impenetrable skull that houses a brain that decided to forgive and embrace him. That's like, fuckin wild, man.
Bruce flicks the curve of Clark's ear, silently teasing.
It'd be too much of an easy pass to say that Bruce does not have to express his feelings when those feelings are aimed at an alien with near godlike powers of perception. The heart has its limits, after all. Tends to keep things simple. It is a simple organ.
But suffice to say that Clark can do some interpretive work. The hand cupping the back of his head, long-suffering sarcasm in ordering something other than squid pizza or over-seasoned ceviche but doing it anyway. Not disappearing out a window before dawn hits. Ear flicks.
"Checking for weak spots, Wayne?" murmured into his throat.
He knows that Clark is not psychic; of all his powers, that is not among them. He also knows that it's funny and probably a little suspect that Bruce can express how furious he is about this thing or that thing but chokes on anything positive. So he tries this way, with touches and ordering food and standing in the shower with him, talking about nothing. He has - mostly - stopped trying to self-sabotage. He has accepted the logic that appropriate ways to express affection fall into the realm of kisses and encouragement, and not buying the Daily Planet or sending Lex Luthor to the pits of hell. (Though he has done both of those things.) (Hell being, Arkham.)
When he looks down, tips Clark's face up, he doesn't press a kiss to his mouth. Instead, just to the side of it, like it would be too much to kiss him properly. Too overwhelming, and he needs a moment still to savor Clark as he is.
Might as well wash up since he's in here. No layer of oceanic heroics plastered to his skin, but the water feels nice, and Clark feels better for being against him. Bruce keeps a hand on him at all times, almost idle, like he's orienting himself against him.
Clark draws his eyebrows together like he's prepared for Bruce to say something—just something, but instead he is kissed. Frinkle brow smooths. The edge of his smile softens too but doesn't go away.
He helps Bruce clean down too, while he's there. Luxurious sweeps of his hands along the plain of the other man's back, gentler around where scar tissue might bucker skin from wounds and surgery both, any recent collections of cloudy bruising. He doesn't know enough about the metal pins that keep Bruce's spine in place to know how gentle is gentle, so he mostly avoids more recent evidence of wear, of tear, and otherwise applies pressure where he thinks it might be welcome.
Collects water in his palms, mapping appreciative swoops with his palm over muscle and bone. Tempting to push this further into, like, more of a sex thing than it already is, but equally tempting to draw the night out by only doing that a little.
Like so: a kiss pressed to the meat between neck and shoulder from behind, an intimate enough one that Clark can taste shower water and Bruce beneath it, a hand low on his back.
Bruce's patchwork spine can tolerate all the things he puts himself through in armor - and all the things he puts himself through in bed - so Clark's hand down his spine would have to put effort into being ungentle enough to hurt. That said, he has no objection to the light application, even if he's unused to being touched like he deserves care. Perhaps because of that.
Already kind of is a sex thing. Yes. But also, that non-seafood order will show up eventually, and scribbling out the end of this artfully sensual encounter with a rough handjob to beat the clock feels not great. Despite Bruce being an expert in rough handjobs, and employing them to melt brains, human or otherwise.
Still—
It could. That kiss on the back of his neck that offers the potential for it. Bruce turns his head enough to catch just a glimpse of him, Clark's shoulder and the line of his arm, and he reaches back to press a hand against his hip. Keeping him there. It could. Neither more nor less but just as good is the way he feels like Clark understands and even enjoys the strange silence that makes up most of their conversations.
Bruce can feel the smile pressed into his shoulder, and Clark responds to the hand at his hip by pushing in a little closer where he is, leaning. More incidental bodied contact than articulate hands and kisses, although he keeps those up too. The water streams around them like an embrace, and between them like something more intimate than that, and the best thing about a moment you hope goes on forever is knowing that it won't, but you'll get it again sometime.
The sudden absence of water is a surprise (at least physiologically), Clark having sneaked his other hand around Bruce to flip the tap with the edge of his little finger.
"Guess we'll never find out," he murmurs into his hair, kisses his ear, and detaches.
Ruthlessly cheerful, cheerfully ruthless, but Clark is good enough to toss Bruce his towel before using his own to lash around his waist. He is still dripping wet when he casts him another megawatt smile and makes to go.
Clark's cheer would be more annoying if 1) Bruce hadn't seen so much of him angry, and in pain, and dead, 2) he wasn't Clark. That he can lure that smile out, and tell that it's real, does a thing to the heart he still has. (That he's always had. Nobody becomes Batman because they don't care. It just got hard, and then he got lost.)
"Uh-huh," is about never finding out, faux-cranky. Bruce slicks his hair back and spends a moment on doing nothing more complicated than watching Clark walk away, because wouldn't you. He catches the towel, and pulls it over his own head first, drying top-down.
"Maybe," he calls, lingering in the bathroom long enough for something-or-other for his face, which is subject to drying out and aging. He would look worse and more scars would still be visible if he weren't vigilant about moisturizer. Also he should probably dry off his foot long dick before the delivery guy shows up and trips on something, since he's just going to guess that Clark has noticed someone approaching the villa, a thing he's still adjusting to. That it isn't omnipresence, it's just his flippin' hearing. And that Bruce can't even be annoyed with his multitude of surveillance points.
"Bed," is his vote, called back through thin walls.
In the next room, Clark towel dries off in a negligent enough fashion, enough to put on some sweatpants as an equally negligent gesture towards some state of dress, digging up his wallet, and then saying, "huh, potato skins," to himself in a satisfied manner after a quick glance through some walls.
The delivery guy does not seem extremely impressed by a friendly shirtless bear man greeting him at the door, although a moment of squinting at Clark's face is interrupted with the offer of a generous tip. Graciases exchanged, food retrieved, which turns out to be a myriad of cartons filled with pub fare, including aforementioned paprika-laced potato skins, a collection of fried onion and pepper loops, a couple of crunchy looking grilled mushroom sandwiches doused in olive oil, and fritters that X-ray vision cannot discern.
"I think non-seafood means vegetarian, out here," he announces, digging through cupboards and drawers for plates and cutlery. There is already half a fritter between his teeth.
Little things: ubiquity of sweatpants, not having to answer the door and contend with socialite celebrity recognition roulette, the way Clark's voice muffles with a mystery veggie fritter in his mouth. He can smell freshly fried oil and hummus, and a breeze of ocean air through windows opened variously through the place. No more scorched ozone from flying a mach 30 back from the Virgin Islands, though the bed where he shoves pillows towards the headboard carries mingled remnants of the both of them.
Bruce appears in the kitchen similarly clothed, fetching a few cans of native beer out of the fridge, and going 'mm', which sounds like agreement-acknowledgment. Closes the fridge door with a knee, explains, "I tickied the 'allergy' box."
They probably prepare all meat on the same grill, so. Nuclear non-seafood option, as even though he thinks Clark would probably have been fine with chicken braised on a flat top that used to have shrimp on it, Bruce Wayne does not do things by halves, even ordering munchies off Yelp. Considerate of the restaurant to have the option, in any event.
'Mhfmm' is muffled confirmation around the last bite of fritter, still not wholly certain he could correctly identify its contents. Clark considers an undiscerning palate to be an asset. Insert whatever midwestern cuisine joke you like here.
He stacks food containers on plates along with a couple of forks for spearing things, superbalances these items with the skill that has less to do with alien agility or dexterity and everything to do with the fact he's juggled worse through more treacherous terrain before plenty of times. Stacks of empty grease-wet plates and bowls, platters of fingerprint-smeared beer glasses chittering together, ducking past competitive dart games, roughhousey crowds watching the game on the corner television. This is cakewalk.
Setting out everything like a picnic on the bed, low lamplight. The music from down the beach has mellowed. A fresh gust of sea air pushes through the window, hitting Clark in the back. It's the little things.
He trades a plate and the other fritter for a beer can, says 'thank you', and sits crossed legged on the mattress, back curved away from the headboard. Instinctual table manners see him helping Bruce fill his plate with handed off containers. Bites a potato skin, makes a surprised face at the flavour. Bed vote notwithstanding, sensuality and intimacy of moments ago is traded in for a friendly kind of companionship that is equally as assumptive of space and attention.
Clark talks a little of the Virgin Islands, the hurricane, quietly informative, and checks his phone, notes, "It's dinnertime on the east coast too," with a twinge of amusement.
This is still a kind of intimacy. Very much so. They could choke it by turning the TV on, or fussing with trays. Instead it's comfortable conversation with the occasional bump of knee or crossover of hands, shift of weight on the mattress, an 'oops' about olive oil on the duvet cover. Bruce is more likely to lean back against the headboard, which puts him in a position to occasionally peer over Clark's shoulder, or reach behind him to put something on the night stand. When he sits up to steal half of an uneaten fritter, it puts him nearly curled behind him.
"How's the game going?" The game is of course, Lois vs her current mark. Bruce wonders if Clark will even have an update - he had been endlessly amused to discover how often she lets Clark hang out to dry, guarding scoops and leads from him like she would any other rival journalist. No wonder he was skulking around in Gotham. She'd pulled all the good shit out from under everybody's feet already.
Decent sandwiches, considering they're mostly mushrooms. Bruce informs him what the fritters are; he has no super-senses, he just seems to know everything. You'd think he'd be pickier, with his money and character flaws of things like not knowing how much milk costs, but really, he'll eat anything. Makes up for it with his diet of falcon eggs protein shakes and rocks while at home.
"Mm. No news is good news," Clark says. "Literally."
With the edge of his hunger blunted, he eventually pushes backwards to lean alongside Bruce, setting aside a mostly emptied plate onto the bedside table and taking up his beer instead.
It is nice, being happy in any kind of sustained way. It is nice, knowing it's doing more for you than just 'distraction'.
It's not just with Bruce, of course. Drinking in bed now reminds him of the last time he'd shared a bottle of dark red wine likewise with Lois, how in attempting to reposition for Reasons they'd knocked the bottle (he maintains it was a mutual mistake) and the blur of his hand correcting it had then compelled her to startle and tip the contents of her glass fully everywhere. How the ring of her laughter felt buoying.
But. It is nice to have that with Bruce as well, in its different rhythm and mode. Clark with his effortless smiles and fingers that don't prune and heroic destiny could easily give the impression of someone who didn't believe he'd fucked up the grand majority of his life, even if guilt compelling him not to call Martha Kent on Mother's Day during some bleak interstitial year looks like small potatoes next to snapping the neck of the other last son of Krypton.
"I'm still torn on eating octopus," he says, at some point, presently. At some point having circled back to no seafood. "I'm in favour of not eating something intelligent, but then where does it stop. A chicken's intelligent at chicken things."
And he's still not all the time sure what to say about being brought back from the dead beyond 'itchy' and 'weird'.
Expensive hotels, ordered food, lying around in bed - favored activities, for Bruce and his various paramours. Unusual is how quiet this is, how unfrantic, how safe. He still likes it the other way: if Selina texted him the address of the Gotham West Hilton and her room number he'd go, and they'd leave a whole host of bruises and scrapes on each other, spilled champaign, maybe a broken window, someone else's call to security about the inevitable screaming match that would later simmer back down to whispered passions. That's what he's used to. He's not used to Clark's subtle humor, his keen observations and gentleness despite it, or the surreal experience of remembering how to feel again. He's not used to his own capacity for care being acknowledged, much less appreciated.
Turns out he likes it.
"I think," leaning back, one knee up, a stray plate at the very end of the bed on the corner, "that the only options are eating everything or nothing. If you judge based on intelligence, it's like you said, everything's smart at something. If you judge based on morality, you're either using a purely subjective sliding scale, which is nonsense, or you have to make a scientific baseline, which is not moral. So when you boil down to the last equation there's no difference between eating a human or eating a pillbug. And then there's the problem of: if it's morally wrong to consume a human for food, because of damage to the human, then is it morally wrong to consume crops harvested by veritable slave labor? To say nothing of the ethics of where drinkable water comes from and how its distributed, anymore."
Okay, well.
Bruce sips his beer.
Silently.
Anyway, "Alfred said he was involved in a project to train an octopus as a spy, once. My night was fine."
Edited (oh right the question) 2020-12-31 01:14 (UTC)
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no subject
It isn't that Clark looks like he's got a hair out of place. That suit is made out of something he's never been able to identify, alien in origin, and clearly unbothered by anything as mundane as dried seawater. To say nothing of Clark himself, who doesn't even have the decency to have the odd acne scar. But, you know. Strenuous work.
Bruce rises to his feet, strangely graceful like he always is despite the dimensions he occupies and the latticework of metal holding his spine together, and holds his hand out to the other man. Come on.
"Want me to pick, or do you want something in particular?"
no subject
He takes Bruce's hand, levers himself up, entertains himself in trying to simulate using the help at all which is in itself pure habit. There is still that scent of ocean clinging to his skin, his hair, less so the odd material of his suit. Better than smoke, gasoline, literal sewerage, ammonium nitrate, an assortment of past adventures he might get covered in, doing the work of saving lives.
On his feet, Clark can step in nearer and land a kiss next to Bruce's chin.
But on that note, as he steps away, reaching up to his collar to start detaching his cape, Clark adds, "Not seafood," with gentle emphasis and earnest eyebrows.
no subject
I don't know how to do this was always honest. I will learn, is, too.
"Alright, that should be easy." On an island in the Mediterranean where that's like the entire diet. But his sarcastic tone is all facade, and while Clark peels himself out of all that, Bruce browses and beepboops an order in via the local UberEats, watching. It's quite late but everything's still open, catering to tourists. Still, it's Europe, and food delivery will work on its own time. Superman will have been long de-supered by the time anything arrives.
"The last time I was in this region, I was fleeing an Italian crime syndicate who blamed a traveling companion of mine for the theft of a cat statue that was, allegedly, cursed."
no subject
He comes to lean on the doorframe between living room and the short hallway that veins off to the bathroom, dressed in his normal earth underwear, arms folded, nary a bruise nor scratch on him, trying to imagine this particular escapade. His raises a curious eyebrow raising not at Italian crime syndicate or cursed cat statue, but traveling companion.
Still, Clark asks, "Was it?" Because he's willing to believe it, at this point, but would at least like verification.
no subject
But—
He shrugs broad shoulders, setting his phone down on the end table by the sofa. "Dunno. Dropped it overboard."
Like an old lady visiting the Titanic. Bruce moves forward to join him, dark eyes drifting over his form. He says, "Maybe it'll turn up," because, you know, so much other shit is being coughed up. But it's clear he isn't thinking too hard about it.
no subject
Ask him he if likes being looked at, given all the givens, and you'd probably get a hedgey kind of answer. Sure but who doesn't. Not in any special way. He spent plenty of time trying to pass invisibly through smalltown America that the searing attention that Superman gets makes for a hefty counterweight, all extremes, and somewhere in there was some guy who was quick to smile back if someone looked sideways.
But that's a little besides the point, and moreover: he discovered that he likes Bruce looking at him.
So the doofy humour seems to recede a little as Bruce heads on over, Clark's attention watching the track of his glance, and once in arms range he rolls his shoulder against the wall to turn and lead the way through to the bathroom. There, he wings on the tap to get the hot water thinking about happening.
"I like the beach," he volunteers, apropos of nothing, feeling the water temperature change. "The sea looks different when you're standing next to it. Like a friend, instead of how it actually is out there."
no subject
An underwater kingdom toppled by a piece of junk Bruce chucked in the ocean purely to annoy both sides of the argument he got stuck in, their quarrelling leaders out for revenge, looking for the sorcerer who cursed them. And it's just some guy. It's the kind of luck that would make sense following the series of events that manifested this very moment.
Handy, being so habitually rude to everyone, socially. How'd you two meet? in an airport bar helps no one.
It would be easy, for Bruce to fetishize Clark's physical perfection. His alienness; to look at him like a god. But instead, when he looks at the other man - sometimes like he's an idiot, but sometimes like now, simply admiring him - it's plain and intent. He is nice to look at, so he looks. He doesn't think Bruce's intensity is disconcerting, so he doesn't have to pretend he isn't.
"Like a friend." Bruce pulls his shirt off over his head. "You really did grow up in flyover country."
no subject
No, the novelty had been mountains, in contrast to the endless flat. He steps into the spray, letting it hit him in the face, quick to drag water through his hair which will dry wilder than the neat sidepart he wears it in.
"And Lo's not that interested. Something about being a redhead. She skis."
He looks back at Bruce, checking his progress, maybe a hint of apology for the chattiness. "Water's fine," he reports.
no subject
Lois is a hell of a woman, in anything she applies herself to. Work or snowbound sports. They saw little of each other, in the years between, but it's impossible to so much as observe Lois Lane and not be impressed. Further impossible to be involved like this, one step removed and sharing all kinds of cooties, and not imagine her and Clark. (They've flirted a little. Via texting. Bruce hasn't mentioned it but he's certain that Clark knows and that thought is somewhat erotic.)
So's the view, he doesn't say.
"Go on." No apology needed. He likes listening to you, Kansas. Meanwhile, unbuckling his belt.
no subject
"And I was thinking about Tibet," Clark says, obliging in sharing his train of thought. It'd be easy to talk about Lois all day, and as much as he in unselfconscious in summoning her name even when standing naked in front of Bruce Wayne, manners dictate he pivots. "I've been doing my homework."
He just means the translation guidebook he got for that one Christmas. The prescribed homework, not the extra credit.
He turns, rinsing soap off his considerable shoulders, the ridiculous V of his back. "Maybe next time we need to get away, you could show me around."
no subject
What with China and all. But it's still an important place to Bruce, and he thinks Clark will appreciate the old-fashioned traditionalism. It's very midwest, in its way. (Also, at least half of the secret ninja cults are pretty cool.)
The shower is expansive, a blend of stereotypical but artfully applied blue and white tiles, plenty of room and only the suggestion of a need for a door. It makes slipping in beside Clark an easy affair of merely moving over, one broad hand smoothing over his forearm, up to his elbow, around his bicep, his touch little more than ghosting. Feeling the way the water pours over him. He pulls his hand away as he steps fully into the cubicle, standing behind Clark and then putting both hands on the small of his back, sweeping up the strong column of his spine, coming to the base of his skull and rubbing. There are never any knots of tension or sprained muscles, but that's no reason to never engage in this kind of touch.
"Salt water and ozone," he murmurs.
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And then Bruce steps out of Clark's vision, which just means he has his other senses to go off of. The shift in temperature of another body near his, the ever present signal of his heartbeat, the general collection of auditory, sensory input that seems to operate on a subconscious level to give Clark the general physiological awareness of someone standing behind him.
He sighs out when Bruce's hands make their way up his spine, head bowing. Not all relief has to be physical. He is not tense, but that doesn't mean he can't relax a little more.
Bruce's words send his mind back to the thing he was saying, the ocean being a friend—but only from the perspective of the beach. He's seen the ocean a lot since he learned how to fly, more than making up for a landlocked childhood, and hovering between a lightning-forked sky and the roiling churn of the gigantic sea makes the earth seem like the strange and unknowable planet it's supposed to be for an alien. It's not all bad, it's not all good.
Clark is happy to soak up a backrub even after he's rinsed the last of the soap off his body, but eventually turns around, expression serene. His hands, reaching out to glide his palms over the muscle slabbed over Bruce's ribcage, this extreme control behind gentleness offset by the fact he can tug Bruce's considerable self to him just like
this
without any effort, a smile breaking across his face and only visible for a moment before he noses up under Bruce's jaw.
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The other thing. At times. If only because a veil of caution still hangs between them, for Bruce. How often is too often, to reach for someone? How often is too often to reach for someone, who is married? I don't know how to do this, for many reasons, but one of those reasons was that this is not merely a sexual entanglement, which make up the lion's share of his intimate history.
How do I express my feelings, at all.
Resurrecting him was an ambitious step one. Granted.
This is also good. Sliding a hand over Clark's hair, cradling the back of his head. Nigh-invulnerable but he still feels completely normal beneath his hand, against his chest, poking at his jaw. Smiling radiantly. An impenetrable skull that houses a brain that decided to forgive and embrace him. That's like, fuckin wild, man.
Bruce flicks the curve of Clark's ear, silently teasing.
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But suffice to say that Clark can do some interpretive work. The hand cupping the back of his head, long-suffering sarcasm in ordering something other than squid pizza or over-seasoned ceviche but doing it anyway. Not disappearing out a window before dawn hits. Ear flicks.
"Checking for weak spots, Wayne?" murmured into his throat.
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Bruce already knows all his weak spots, anyway.
(Left atrium. Kryptonite. Lois. Mom. Shitty beer, awkward friends.)
He knows that Clark is not psychic; of all his powers, that is not among them. He also knows that it's funny and probably a little suspect that Bruce can express how furious he is about this thing or that thing but chokes on anything positive. So he tries this way, with touches and ordering food and standing in the shower with him, talking about nothing. He has - mostly - stopped trying to self-sabotage. He has accepted the logic that appropriate ways to express affection fall into the realm of kisses and encouragement, and not buying the Daily Planet or sending Lex Luthor to the pits of hell. (Though he has done both of those things.) (Hell being, Arkham.)
When he looks down, tips Clark's face up, he doesn't press a kiss to his mouth. Instead, just to the side of it, like it would be too much to kiss him properly. Too overwhelming, and he needs a moment still to savor Clark as he is.
Might as well wash up since he's in here. No layer of oceanic heroics plastered to his skin, but the water feels nice, and Clark feels better for being against him. Bruce keeps a hand on him at all times, almost idle, like he's orienting himself against him.
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He helps Bruce clean down too, while he's there. Luxurious sweeps of his hands along the plain of the other man's back, gentler around where scar tissue might bucker skin from wounds and surgery both, any recent collections of cloudy bruising. He doesn't know enough about the metal pins that keep Bruce's spine in place to know how gentle is gentle, so he mostly avoids more recent evidence of wear, of tear, and otherwise applies pressure where he thinks it might be welcome.
Collects water in his palms, mapping appreciative swoops with his palm over muscle and bone. Tempting to push this further into, like, more of a sex thing than it already is, but equally tempting to draw the night out by only doing that a little.
Like so: a kiss pressed to the meat between neck and shoulder from behind, an intimate enough one that Clark can taste shower water and Bruce beneath it, a hand low on his back.
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Already kind of is a sex thing. Yes. But also, that non-seafood order will show up eventually, and scribbling out the end of this artfully sensual encounter with a rough handjob to beat the clock feels not great. Despite Bruce being an expert in rough handjobs, and employing them to melt brains, human or otherwise.
Still—
It could. That kiss on the back of his neck that offers the potential for it. Bruce turns his head enough to catch just a glimpse of him, Clark's shoulder and the line of his arm, and he reaches back to press a hand against his hip. Keeping him there. It could. Neither more nor less but just as good is the way he feels like Clark understands and even enjoys the strange silence that makes up most of their conversations.
Muttered, "Do your fingers even prune?"
God. Now that's privileged.
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The sudden absence of water is a surprise (at least physiologically), Clark having sneaked his other hand around Bruce to flip the tap with the edge of his little finger.
"Guess we'll never find out," he murmurs into his hair, kisses his ear, and detaches.
Ruthlessly cheerful, cheerfully ruthless, but Clark is good enough to toss Bruce his towel before using his own to lash around his waist. He is still dripping wet when he casts him another megawatt smile and makes to go.
Down the hallway— "Do we need plates?"
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"Uh-huh," is about never finding out, faux-cranky. Bruce slicks his hair back and spends a moment on doing nothing more complicated than watching Clark walk away, because wouldn't you. He catches the towel, and pulls it over his own head first, drying top-down.
"Maybe," he calls, lingering in the bathroom long enough for something-or-other for his face, which is subject to drying out and aging. He would look worse and more scars would still be visible if he weren't vigilant about moisturizer. Also he should probably dry off his foot long dick before the delivery guy shows up and trips on something, since he's just going to guess that Clark has noticed someone approaching the villa, a thing he's still adjusting to. That it isn't omnipresence, it's just his flippin' hearing. And that Bruce can't even be annoyed with his multitude of surveillance points.
"Dunno what they'll bring. Patio or bed?"
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In the next room, Clark towel dries off in a negligent enough fashion, enough to put on some sweatpants as an equally negligent gesture towards some state of dress, digging up his wallet, and then saying, "huh, potato skins," to himself in a satisfied manner after a quick glance through some walls.
The delivery guy does not seem extremely impressed by a friendly shirtless bear man greeting him at the door, although a moment of squinting at Clark's face is interrupted with the offer of a generous tip. Graciases exchanged, food retrieved, which turns out to be a myriad of cartons filled with pub fare, including aforementioned paprika-laced potato skins, a collection of fried onion and pepper loops, a couple of crunchy looking grilled mushroom sandwiches doused in olive oil, and fritters that X-ray vision cannot discern.
"I think non-seafood means vegetarian, out here," he announces, digging through cupboards and drawers for plates and cutlery. There is already half a fritter between his teeth.
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Bruce appears in the kitchen similarly clothed, fetching a few cans of native beer out of the fridge, and going 'mm', which sounds like agreement-acknowledgment. Closes the fridge door with a knee, explains, "I tickied the 'allergy' box."
They probably prepare all meat on the same grill, so. Nuclear non-seafood option, as even though he thinks Clark would probably have been fine with chicken braised on a flat top that used to have shrimp on it, Bruce Wayne does not do things by halves, even ordering munchies off Yelp. Considerate of the restaurant to have the option, in any event.
"Good?" Since he's already eating.
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He stacks food containers on plates along with a couple of forks for spearing things, superbalances these items with the skill that has less to do with alien agility or dexterity and everything to do with the fact he's juggled worse through more treacherous terrain before plenty of times. Stacks of empty grease-wet plates and bowls, platters of fingerprint-smeared beer glasses chittering together, ducking past competitive dart games, roughhousey crowds watching the game on the corner television. This is cakewalk.
Setting out everything like a picnic on the bed, low lamplight. The music from down the beach has mellowed. A fresh gust of sea air pushes through the window, hitting Clark in the back. It's the little things.
He trades a plate and the other fritter for a beer can, says 'thank you', and sits crossed legged on the mattress, back curved away from the headboard. Instinctual table manners see him helping Bruce fill his plate with handed off containers. Bites a potato skin, makes a surprised face at the flavour. Bed vote notwithstanding, sensuality and intimacy of moments ago is traded in for a friendly kind of companionship that is equally as assumptive of space and attention.
Clark talks a little of the Virgin Islands, the hurricane, quietly informative, and checks his phone, notes, "It's dinnertime on the east coast too," with a twinge of amusement.
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"How's the game going?" The game is of course, Lois vs her current mark. Bruce wonders if Clark will even have an update - he had been endlessly amused to discover how often she lets Clark hang out to dry, guarding scoops and leads from him like she would any other rival journalist. No wonder he was skulking around in Gotham. She'd pulled all the good shit out from under everybody's feet already.
Decent sandwiches, considering they're mostly mushrooms. Bruce informs him what the fritters are; he has no super-senses, he just seems to know everything. You'd think he'd be pickier, with his money and character flaws of things like not knowing how much milk costs, but really, he'll eat anything. Makes up for it with his diet of falcon eggs protein shakes and rocks while at home.
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With the edge of his hunger blunted, he eventually pushes backwards to lean alongside Bruce, setting aside a mostly emptied plate onto the bedside table and taking up his beer instead.
It is nice, being happy in any kind of sustained way. It is nice, knowing it's doing more for you than just 'distraction'.
It's not just with Bruce, of course. Drinking in bed now reminds him of the last time he'd shared a bottle of dark red wine likewise with Lois, how in attempting to reposition for Reasons they'd knocked the bottle (he maintains it was a mutual mistake) and the blur of his hand correcting it had then compelled her to startle and tip the contents of her glass fully everywhere. How the ring of her laughter felt buoying.
But. It is nice to have that with Bruce as well, in its different rhythm and mode. Clark with his effortless smiles and fingers that don't prune and heroic destiny could easily give the impression of someone who didn't believe he'd fucked up the grand majority of his life, even if guilt compelling him not to call Martha Kent on Mother's Day during some bleak interstitial year looks like small potatoes next to snapping the neck of the other last son of Krypton.
"I'm still torn on eating octopus," he says, at some point, presently. At some point having circled back to no seafood. "I'm in favour of not eating something intelligent, but then where does it stop. A chicken's intelligent at chicken things."
And he's still not all the time sure what to say about being brought back from the dead beyond 'itchy' and 'weird'.
"How was your night?"
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Turns out he likes it.
"I think," leaning back, one knee up, a stray plate at the very end of the bed on the corner, "that the only options are eating everything or nothing. If you judge based on intelligence, it's like you said, everything's smart at something. If you judge based on morality, you're either using a purely subjective sliding scale, which is nonsense, or you have to make a scientific baseline, which is not moral. So when you boil down to the last equation there's no difference between eating a human or eating a pillbug. And then there's the problem of: if it's morally wrong to consume a human for food, because of damage to the human, then is it morally wrong to consume crops harvested by veritable slave labor? To say nothing of the ethics of where drinkable water comes from and how its distributed, anymore."
Okay, well.
Bruce sips his beer.
Silently.
Anyway, "Alfred said he was involved in a project to train an octopus as a spy, once. My night was fine."
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