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)
Clark listens respectfully, even if the divots in his brow deepen all the more by the time we get to the fact of no ethical consumption under capitalism, even drinking water. He sips his beer when Bruce does, casting his attention back forwards again.
:/
"Good," he says, on Bruce's night being fine, still stuck on spy octopi before he offers, "I think my baseline is," and he thinks about it for a further few seconds, "does it have a name." His farm just did corn, which made things easier, and no one was willing to eat a chicken he'd named Jeannine at age seven.
And Clark adds, on his way to another beer sip, "Let me have that one," in case Bruce was thinking of refuting the logic. The corner of a non-serious smile not quite hidden.
"I suppose I can allow that," Bruce says, in that same flat, too-serious tone he was using to describe the ground-down teeth of misery capitalism (even though it's not like he's an inherent socialist, he's more of an enforcement-oriented anarchist-egalitarian, which is a nightmare, yes, but a lesser one, ranked in a line of Ways Bruce Wayne Is A Nightmare). Most people would not be able to detect the humor.
The spy octopus probably had a name. If it did, Alfred didn't tell him, because Bruce can't remember it. Strange that he didn't ask; he's certain he was pretty young, when the story was relayed. But he'd been weird even then.
"You're a pet person." Shelby Kent. He remembers. And many other offhand references to fuzzy things in years past, some of them in little frames in Martha's house. Bruce is not a pet person; this is not a shock. "No goldfish in Metropolis?"
"I don't wanna give Arthur an inside guy," is dry, at least until Clark smiles at his own joke.
They're thinking about getting a bird. Lois' instincts of someone with a dedicated working life in a big city, reluctant to introduce just One More Stressor in spite of Clark's reassurances that they'd be great bird parents. He mentions this and pulls up the photos of bright orange conures and more mellow lovebirds he has saved as propaganda, passing his phone to Bruce to take a look.
But asks, "No furry friends growing up?" as he leans forward, gathering up some of the empty platters and plates into a neat stack.
Bruce can picture it easily. Lois scoffing and moving on, Clark looking at her with his giant eyes, and his power-point presentation. Bird propaganda. He shifts so that he doesn't knock anything over, looks through the photos, Clark's phone angled slightly out, so that he can peer over his shoulder and commentate if he wants. They are cute, in theory, and he knows Clark will enjoy feeding them little pieces of cut fruit, patiently tolerating beak-bites as they learn to behave.
At least it's not cats.
"Uh," Bruce says, a funny noise like he was automatically going to answer, and then thought better of it. A moment of consideration, as he looks at some pastel blue lovebirds.
"The groundskeeper who looked after the horses," he begins again, and apparently some thread of self-consciousness had been what stalled him, there, the sheer absurd aristocracy of that sentence, "had a dog, but it was a working dog, and not too friendly."
Tiny Bruce Wayne at his riding lessons, scared to pet the enormous hound after his trust, lured in by the promise of soft floppy ears, had been betrayed by a growl. Once upon a time, he was a sweet kid.
Take-out containers, plates, forks, and his mostly empty beer are all gathered together and balanced on the stand, and Clark scoots back again. Nearer than before, slotting himself against Bruce in an automatic kind of way to share in looking at pictures of colourful tiny dinosaurs. He accepts the phone back into his own hand, scrolls through until he finds the YouTube compilation of 'parrots being cute' he'd saved, clearly the defense's final statement.
It's dumb, he knows, but he lets it play as background, paying it less attention than his Travelling Companion, the things he's saying to him.
"Dogs with jobs to do," he muses. Chattiness mellowed, quiet. "Funny you should say that, a horse is my back up alternative. You should introduce me."
All horses have names, even the ones terribly exploited for sport. They have the worst names, but they're names.
"We didn't keep any," he says, because while it is a hilarious aristocrat thing, groundkeepers and Th Horses, it's also not always, out in the Sunflower State. "But there's always been a dog. We had a hutch of rabbits for a while. One hamster. A cat that hung out if we put chicken on the patio for her, or him. Chickens, a goat, but they weren't, you know. Allowed in the house. I don't think I'm forgetting anyone."
Thinking, then, to Bruce looming in his living room, attending to a wiggly Shelby. Clark smiles, and says, "I bet animals like you."
It's a big estate, he could say, mild and dull, of dogs with jobs to do. There was always something to be done, foxes to be kept out of not hen houses, but wine cellars, pool houses, stables. A year ago he might have clipped, Did it look like there were any horses left.
But Clark knows what the property looks like, and their time together has worn down some of the spines on his armor. Acclimated. So,
"Fifteen years or so since I owned any. Richard was very good, technically, but much more interested in trying to get me to adopt retired circus zebras than actually attending lessons."
Man. He bets Clark is great with kids. Bruce draws in a breath, pretending with serious skill that he didn't just accidentally stick a knife between his own ribs, and settles a hand against the other man's thigh. Bird video. He likes the Beach Boys one. Staunching that oopsie emotional bleeding by ignoring it.
The Beach Boys one is really good, it's true, as is the charming notion of the Wayne property hosting rescue zebras, but Clark misses it when the barely perceptible glitch in Bruce's heartbeat draws focus. This close, it'd be impossible not to, not when you can set your watch to Batman's ticker, and Clark has reflected before that the scope of people who can tolerate that particular level of attention is probably extraordinarily narrow. Lois and Bruce both being such.
Anyway. He turns his head around to look at Bruce, as if there'd be something in his expression he could read.
There isn't. Clark's own expression is that of interest, concern, a query stamped into the directness of his stare. His phone in his hand cheeps and tweets with tinny bird sounds, lowered an inch.
His free hand settles on Bruce's. He asks, "You okay?"
Something else that's new, is the way Bruce does not recoil. He's adapted to a number of things about Clark, but he is not yet used to being so easily read (expression notwithstanding; poker face intact). Or rather, he is not yet used to the way Clark has ceased to pretend he isn't reading him. Biometrics is the word. Would be, for a human.
He doesn't say anything for a while, but he doesn't go tense. Wades in the untested waters of neither shutting down nor immediately changing the subject. He shifts his fingers beneath Clark's, rubbing a thumb against his, watching their hands.
Bruce gives him a look, and it's softer than he even means it to be, but that's alright. I'm okay, yes. Also slightly, Sorry. Like they're just sitting here and it's nice and his pulse does a weird thing. Think he could blame the olive oil? Probably not.
"The boys would have liked you," is what he says, eventually, soft-spoken.
He doesn't all the time expect an answer, and not just because Bruce is Bruce. As established, Clark Kent is not literally psychic, and it's only fair there are some frontiers he can't just access as easily as the rest of them, even when he has a lead to go off of. But also: Bruce is Bruce.
Clark loosens his hold to permit the tangling, careful. Everyone is very fragile. Fingers feel especially delicate. When he returns the gesture with a soft squeeze, it is feather-light.
So is his expression, softening too, worry lines smoothing. He even smiles, but it's a very different kind than happy kind. It is only barely there. "Tell me about it," he invites. It's flat like a request, but should read as a question. He doesn't know enough to give more than platitude, and he doesn't want to give platitude.
Bruce tips his head, considering. Does not immediately say No. That'd be silly, as he's the one who went ahead and answered in the first place. Every moment he feels more even-keeled, and that's nice - for some given value. By himself it would be very easy (and common practice) to spiral, but he lists away from it, here. Not purely because of Clark's company, though that helps.
"There isn't much to tell." There are a million things to tell, but Bruce isn't that way, usually, no matter the topic. He says vague and implicative things about his own experiences, and only offers stories if they're someone else's.
"I do mean— you."
Also Superman. Who doesn't like Superman? (Shush.) But they'd really like Clark.
Clark can't not make his eyebrows do something very subtly skeptical at the idea there's not much to tell, but it doesn't feel right to pry. Not as directly as he might, normally, and not when he only picked it up after some involuntary muscle flinch.
"I mean," he says, "people get there eventually." The unspoken, even you. Old joke, not super funny.
However, he is very likeable.
But he is also not for everyone, and maybe it's a surprise to know that boys brought up by Bruce Wayne in Gotham City would like him. Cultural differences across America aren't nothing, he's encountered them all the time. But maybe that's part of why. He can only guess. "I wish I could meet them," he says, more seriously. He knows a little of the circumstances of both, but there is too much foregone conclusion in Bruce's voice to refute.
He lifts up Bruce's hand, brushes his mouth across his knuckles.
One child is dead, but: "You could probably just drop in on Richard sometime. The trick would be not mentioning me, and I taught him how to be a detective."
Nightwing is not as brutally effective as Batman, but he's just as smart, and also emotionally insightful. The horror.
Bruce watches that kiss to his hand, and squeezes in response. He waits a moment before leaning in to replace it with his mouth against Clark's, a little more intent than just soft. But only a little.
"I was a different person, then. You might have liked that man better." A beat, and, "Though I still didn't like anybody."
The permission (which is how Clark is taking it) is a minor surprise, but taken in good faith. His expression skews thoughtful, a silent maybe I will to the tip of his head, eye contact unbreaking.
Until he is kissed, anyway, eyes closing on auto. Occurs to him only then that their kisses have thus far tonight been a little sideways, never matching up, and he can feel himself warm to it now, as though the delay had been by design. He returns the subtle intention of it, and the subtlety itself.
Kind of.
"Well, I like this guy plenty," Clark says. The bed creaks as he shifts his body around, to face Bruce a little better, knee bumping knee. The start of crowding in on him. "Not sure how you'd take me dialling it up a notch."
It'll happen sooner or later. Might as well acknowledge it, so that Bruce can't rightfully act so offended over the invasion when it does. (Keyword: rightfully. He'll still probably flip out. But Clark will have some edge of leverage in the argument, set up that way on purpose, like speedbumps for his future self.)
They have time. Neither of them are dead. Subtle is alright.
So's this. Clark kissing him back, moving to face him, get up into his space. Bruce reclines against the headboard and lays one hand at Clark's side, just resting there, moving with him as he moves. His dark eyes on the other man's light ones, an unnamable emotion tucked into the corner of his lopsided almost-smile. (A good one.)
"Mm. Yeah. You know me, always gun-shy about doing too much."
Not a dramatic or intense bone in this guy's body. Bruce Wayne, the picture of lowkey. His hand moves, fingers against the waistband of Clark's sweatpants. He tilts his head back to look at him, a hint of daring.
Hands and knees, the mattress sinking beneath the density of them both converging around the same spot. Clark reaching past him to find a grip on the headboard, and the next time he kisses Bruce, Bruce can hear the creak of wood under stress from just the slight flex of Clark's hand.
Daring is met with more guileless interest reflected back at him, a lazy heat in clear eyes. He's never all the time exactly certain how this will go, what they might do together and to one another, even though the conclusion is generally a safe bet. Sometimes it's a trick, that the simple and easy moments feel so familiar, that he forgets they're still finding things out.
His other hand lands on Bruce's chest, gentle, feeling the thrum of his heart before he draws that hand downwards, fingertips seeking out sensitive points as he kisses Bruce's mouth again.
If asked, Bruce would say that when it's easy, it's because that a longing for something this-shaped existed before that shape was filled with a person. The acceptance of moodiness, the creak of a headboard underneath a light touch, a particular kind of ugly honesty that's taken as comfortable. Is comfortable. Have you ever wanted to be as fucked up as you actually are, and know that the other person in bed with you is, too. It's great - better - when that other person is good, and making you good. They're surely doing something positive for each other, here, too, but there is a difference between the kind of honesty that compels the purchase of a wedding ring and the kind that forgives murder attempts.
If asked, Bruce wouldn't actually say anything. But that's what he'd think.
"What are we moderating?" is murmured into Clark's mouth, a rasp of gravel that's as much his voice as it is his perpetual state of five-o-clock. He wonders sometimes what it feels like against skin that can't be irritated by it. His heart is steady, elevated now from interest, and not fumbling with his own weak spots. He closes a hand over the back of Clark's head and kisses him, like everything barely-there all evening was just lying in wait for this. The hand at his middle pushes at elastic, encouraging his pants down and off of him, devoid of any instinct for coyness.
A break in kissing without backing up, just to help—knees shifting to work fabric off completely, reaching backwards to unhook crumpled sweatpants off his own ankles, flipped aside. Another swell of a kiss, of kissing, a little hungrier than before, as if forgetting he was asked a question. Or intent on making Bruce forget he asked a question.
(Probably, Clark would not call them fucked up. But he'd probably get around to that same premise. Maybe with a twee puzzle piece metaphor.)
"Nothing," he mumbles against Bruce's mouth anyway, voice pitched breathier, kiss broken further with his smile, "I was being sarcastic." He's allowed.
At some point, his fingers have slipped into Bruce's waistband. Every part of him is always a few degrees warmer than most might consider comfortable, usually, and that extends right down to the knuckles now press against that divot between hip and pelvis.
Kissing graduates down to his throat.
Edited (whole sentences just for you) 2021-01-01 11:41 (UTC)
"Were you." Bruce likes it. Clark's sarcasm. How it's understated like weaponized midwestern passive-aggression. Kitten-teeth bitey. He wants to hear him complain about getting stuck in traffic. He wants him to keep kissing him.
Bruce shifts up enough as he's able - no point pushing too hard against Clark - so that he can touch him, hand over his back, sides, around to the front of his thighs and slipping one between, though he doesn't reach for his cock. Contact his only made incidentally, instead rubbing over his hipbone and down, pressing against the line that follows his femoral artery, palming the inside of his thigh.
Clark is overheated and Bruce is always too fucking cold; east coast genetics and nerve damage, a black hole on the other side of solar power. He makes a low noise at that touch, the mouth against his throat. The hand at the back of Clark's head splays out and tangles fingers in his hair, pulling slow and close to the root, not particularly out of any concern that he'd be hurt if he yanked on it, but because it feels good to do that, in his opinion.
The hair grip gets an appreciative hum. The hand pressed inside his thigh can feel the subtle twitch and flex of muscle as Clark moves a little to encourage it. The amount that Bruce declares he likes him gets a laugh breathed against his shoulder.
"Sounds like there's room for improvement."
—not a complaint, apparently. An impetus. It's what dumb banter is for.
Clark turns his wrist so that when his hand slips into Bruce's pants, it's to circle his fingers around his cock. He flexes his wrist so that waistband slips further down, give them both some room. The first time they'd done this, Bruce could probably have clocked that he's not Clark's first male partner, but that there haven't been a lot of them. Probably not a lot of people in general.
However, shyness on its own hadn't been too much of an issue. But don't worry, there were plenty of hangups to work through at the time.
There are enough hangups between them that one might wonder if they're mutually part of the appeal. Bruce has had a lot of sex, with a lot of people - fewer of them men, than women, and with men he's been nearly exclusively in charge. It's been a wonder, learning that there are still new things to experience. To discover about himself, and share, to look up at Clark dazzled or dumbfounded with a total absence of cynicism in a way he didn't believe himself capable of.
The only room for improvement, perhaps, is becoming even more comfortable with each other as time goes on. As it stands, there's no hesitation as he shifts up into Clark's touch, at a bit of a funny angle for it against the headboard with the other kneeling over him, but that hardly matters. He's not hard yet but on his way, always easy to convince. You'd think he'd want less physicality with how much time he puts into violence, but no; it's the language he speaks most fluently, the thing he can't seem to get enough of, one way or another. (Maddening for someone so unsocial and private.)
"Feel like anything in particular?" is very quiet. Bruce in general can be very quiet, and there is something he likes very much in knowing that Clark can hear him no matter what. He drags blunt fingernails over his scalp and teases his dick with the backs of his knuckles, a slow slide of skin that's parts soft and scarred even there, hands broken too many times and ways to count.
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no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
:/
"Good," he says, on Bruce's night being fine, still stuck on spy octopi before he offers, "I think my baseline is," and he thinks about it for a further few seconds, "does it have a name." His farm just did corn, which made things easier, and no one was willing to eat a chicken he'd named Jeannine at age seven.
And Clark adds, on his way to another beer sip, "Let me have that one," in case Bruce was thinking of refuting the logic. The corner of a non-serious smile not quite hidden.
no subject
The spy octopus probably had a name. If it did, Alfred didn't tell him, because Bruce can't remember it. Strange that he didn't ask; he's certain he was pretty young, when the story was relayed. But he'd been weird even then.
"You're a pet person." Shelby Kent. He remembers. And many other offhand references to fuzzy things in years past, some of them in little frames in Martha's house. Bruce is not a pet person; this is not a shock. "No goldfish in Metropolis?"
no subject
They're thinking about getting a bird. Lois' instincts of someone with a dedicated working life in a big city, reluctant to introduce just One More Stressor in spite of Clark's reassurances that they'd be great bird parents. He mentions this and pulls up the photos of bright orange conures and more mellow lovebirds he has saved as propaganda, passing his phone to Bruce to take a look.
But asks, "No furry friends growing up?" as he leans forward, gathering up some of the empty platters and plates into a neat stack.
no subject
At least it's not cats.
"Uh," Bruce says, a funny noise like he was automatically going to answer, and then thought better of it. A moment of consideration, as he looks at some pastel blue lovebirds.
"The groundskeeper who looked after the horses," he begins again, and apparently some thread of self-consciousness had been what stalled him, there, the sheer absurd aristocracy of that sentence, "had a dog, but it was a working dog, and not too friendly."
Tiny Bruce Wayne at his riding lessons, scared to pet the enormous hound after his trust, lured in by the promise of soft floppy ears, had been betrayed by a growl. Once upon a time, he was a sweet kid.
"I think they moved to Maine."
no subject
It's dumb, he knows, but he lets it play as background, paying it less attention than his Travelling Companion, the things he's saying to him.
"Dogs with jobs to do," he muses. Chattiness mellowed, quiet. "Funny you should say that, a horse is my back up alternative. You should introduce me."
All horses have names, even the ones terribly exploited for sport. They have the worst names, but they're names.
"We didn't keep any," he says, because while it is a hilarious aristocrat thing, groundkeepers and Th Horses, it's also not always, out in the Sunflower State. "But there's always been a dog. We had a hutch of rabbits for a while. One hamster. A cat that hung out if we put chicken on the patio for her, or him. Chickens, a goat, but they weren't, you know. Allowed in the house. I don't think I'm forgetting anyone."
Thinking, then, to Bruce looming in his living room, attending to a wiggly Shelby. Clark smiles, and says, "I bet animals like you."
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But Clark knows what the property looks like, and their time together has worn down some of the spines on his armor. Acclimated. So,
"Fifteen years or so since I owned any. Richard was very good, technically, but much more interested in trying to get me to adopt retired circus zebras than actually attending lessons."
Man. He bets Clark is great with kids. Bruce draws in a breath, pretending with serious skill that he didn't just accidentally stick a knife between his own ribs, and settles a hand against the other man's thigh. Bird video. He likes the Beach Boys one. Staunching that oopsie emotional bleeding by ignoring it.
"Animals just appreciate calm."
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Anyway. He turns his head around to look at Bruce, as if there'd be something in his expression he could read.
There isn't. Clark's own expression is that of interest, concern, a query stamped into the directness of his stare. His phone in his hand cheeps and tweets with tinny bird sounds, lowered an inch.
His free hand settles on Bruce's. He asks, "You okay?"
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He doesn't say anything for a while, but he doesn't go tense. Wades in the untested waters of neither shutting down nor immediately changing the subject. He shifts his fingers beneath Clark's, rubbing a thumb against his, watching their hands.
Bruce gives him a look, and it's softer than he even means it to be, but that's alright. I'm okay, yes. Also slightly, Sorry. Like they're just sitting here and it's nice and his pulse does a weird thing. Think he could blame the olive oil? Probably not.
"The boys would have liked you," is what he says, eventually, soft-spoken.
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He doesn't all the time expect an answer, and not just because Bruce is Bruce. As established, Clark Kent is not literally psychic, and it's only fair there are some frontiers he can't just access as easily as the rest of them, even when he has a lead to go off of. But also: Bruce is Bruce.
Clark loosens his hold to permit the tangling, careful. Everyone is very fragile. Fingers feel especially delicate. When he returns the gesture with a soft squeeze, it is feather-light.
So is his expression, softening too, worry lines smoothing. He even smiles, but it's a very different kind than happy kind. It is only barely there. "Tell me about it," he invites. It's flat like a request, but should read as a question. He doesn't know enough to give more than platitude, and he doesn't want to give platitude.
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"There isn't much to tell." There are a million things to tell, but Bruce isn't that way, usually, no matter the topic. He says vague and implicative things about his own experiences, and only offers stories if they're someone else's.
"I do mean— you."
Also Superman. Who doesn't like Superman? (Shush.) But they'd really like Clark.
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"I mean," he says, "people get there eventually." The unspoken, even you. Old joke, not super funny.
However, he is very likeable.
But he is also not for everyone, and maybe it's a surprise to know that boys brought up by Bruce Wayne in Gotham City would like him. Cultural differences across America aren't nothing, he's encountered them all the time. But maybe that's part of why. He can only guess. "I wish I could meet them," he says, more seriously. He knows a little of the circumstances of both, but there is too much foregone conclusion in Bruce's voice to refute.
He lifts up Bruce's hand, brushes his mouth across his knuckles.
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Nightwing is not as brutally effective as Batman, but he's just as smart, and also emotionally insightful. The horror.
Bruce watches that kiss to his hand, and squeezes in response. He waits a moment before leaning in to replace it with his mouth against Clark's, a little more intent than just soft. But only a little.
"I was a different person, then. You might have liked that man better." A beat, and, "Though I still didn't like anybody."
lol
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Until he is kissed, anyway, eyes closing on auto. Occurs to him only then that their kisses have thus far tonight been a little sideways, never matching up, and he can feel himself warm to it now, as though the delay had been by design. He returns the subtle intention of it, and the subtlety itself.
Kind of.
"Well, I like this guy plenty," Clark says. The bed creaks as he shifts his body around, to face Bruce a little better, knee bumping knee. The start of crowding in on him. "Not sure how you'd take me dialling it up a notch."
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They have time. Neither of them are dead. Subtle is alright.
So's this. Clark kissing him back, moving to face him, get up into his space. Bruce reclines against the headboard and lays one hand at Clark's side, just resting there, moving with him as he moves. His dark eyes on the other man's light ones, an unnamable emotion tucked into the corner of his lopsided almost-smile. (A good one.)
"Mm. Yeah. You know me, always gun-shy about doing too much."
Not a dramatic or intense bone in this guy's body. Bruce Wayne, the picture of lowkey. His hand moves, fingers against the waistband of Clark's sweatpants. He tilts his head back to look at him, a hint of daring.
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Hands and knees, the mattress sinking beneath the density of them both converging around the same spot. Clark reaching past him to find a grip on the headboard, and the next time he kisses Bruce, Bruce can hear the creak of wood under stress from just the slight flex of Clark's hand.
Daring is met with more guileless interest reflected back at him, a lazy heat in clear eyes. He's never all the time exactly certain how this will go, what they might do together and to one another, even though the conclusion is generally a safe bet. Sometimes it's a trick, that the simple and easy moments feel so familiar, that he forgets they're still finding things out.
His other hand lands on Bruce's chest, gentle, feeling the thrum of his heart before he draws that hand downwards, fingertips seeking out sensitive points as he kisses Bruce's mouth again.
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If asked, Bruce wouldn't actually say anything. But that's what he'd think.
"What are we moderating?" is murmured into Clark's mouth, a rasp of gravel that's as much his voice as it is his perpetual state of five-o-clock. He wonders sometimes what it feels like against skin that can't be irritated by it. His heart is steady, elevated now from interest, and not fumbling with his own weak spots. He closes a hand over the back of Clark's head and kisses him, like everything barely-there all evening was just lying in wait for this. The hand at his middle pushes at elastic, encouraging his pants down and off of him, devoid of any instinct for coyness.
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(Probably, Clark would not call them fucked up. But he'd probably get around to that same premise. Maybe with a twee puzzle piece metaphor.)
"Nothing," he mumbles against Bruce's mouth anyway, voice pitched breathier, kiss broken further with his smile, "I was being sarcastic." He's allowed.
At some point, his fingers have slipped into Bruce's waistband. Every part of him is always a few degrees warmer than most might consider comfortable, usually, and that extends right down to the knuckles now press against that divot between hip and pelvis.
Kissing graduates down to his throat.
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Bruce shifts up enough as he's able - no point pushing too hard against Clark - so that he can touch him, hand over his back, sides, around to the front of his thighs and slipping one between, though he doesn't reach for his cock. Contact his only made incidentally, instead rubbing over his hipbone and down, pressing against the line that follows his femoral artery, palming the inside of his thigh.
Clark is overheated and Bruce is always too fucking cold; east coast genetics and nerve damage, a black hole on the other side of solar power. He makes a low noise at that touch, the mouth against his throat. The hand at the back of Clark's head splays out and tangles fingers in his hair, pulling slow and close to the root, not particularly out of any concern that he'd be hurt if he yanked on it, but because it feels good to do that, in his opinion.
"Guess I like you alright, too."
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"Sounds like there's room for improvement."
—not a complaint, apparently. An impetus. It's what dumb banter is for.
Clark turns his wrist so that when his hand slips into Bruce's pants, it's to circle his fingers around his cock. He flexes his wrist so that waistband slips further down, give them both some room. The first time they'd done this, Bruce could probably have clocked that he's not Clark's first male partner, but that there haven't been a lot of them. Probably not a lot of people in general.
However, shyness on its own hadn't been too much of an issue. But don't worry, there were plenty of hangups to work through at the time.
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The only room for improvement, perhaps, is becoming even more comfortable with each other as time goes on. As it stands, there's no hesitation as he shifts up into Clark's touch, at a bit of a funny angle for it against the headboard with the other kneeling over him, but that hardly matters. He's not hard yet but on his way, always easy to convince. You'd think he'd want less physicality with how much time he puts into violence, but no; it's the language he speaks most fluently, the thing he can't seem to get enough of, one way or another. (Maddening for someone so unsocial and private.)
"Feel like anything in particular?" is very quiet. Bruce in general can be very quiet, and there is something he likes very much in knowing that Clark can hear him no matter what. He drags blunt fingernails over his scalp and teases his dick with the backs of his knuckles, a slow slide of skin that's parts soft and scarred even there, hands broken too many times and ways to count.
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