Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Just how many robots can one guy make?”

“Flash.”

“No, but really,” Barry said, zipping past a line of robots, explosions following in his wake. “Luthor must’ve spent months building all of these things, and at what point did he look over his sea of automatons and say, ‘and now I shall rest?’”

“The last thing I need is an allusion to Luthor’s god complex. Less talking, more fighting,” Bruce said over the comm.

Clark’s mouth quirked when Barry mockingly repeated, “Less talking, more fighting,” his voice too low for anyone without super-hearing to catch.

“I heard that.”

Well, anyone without super-hearing and Batman anyway.

There really were a whole lot of robots, however, their torsos lead-lined, because Luthor knew enough about his powers to take that precaution—which raised the question of why Luthor would feel the measure was necessary. Bombs? Poison?

Clark knew they’d have their answer soon enough. He just wondered how much damage would go along with it.

“Anything?” he asked as he punched a robot, incapacitating it and the six others directly behind it when it went flying. At least they didn’t have to worry about bystanders getting hurt this time. Luthor had sent his robots to an abandoned factory over ten miles away from the nearest town, and it was a relief knowing civilians wouldn’t be in the line of fire.

“Not yet,” Bruce said from his position high above them where he was observing everything that was happening while still being under cover. He’d decided Clark and Barry could handle the robots themselves for a while while he tried to figure out what Luthor was after. “They’re exhibiting a seemingly random grouping pattern, and I’ve scanned the area, but there doesn’t seem to be anything Luthor would be interested in. I’m pulling up files on the factory itself—”

There was a harsh screeching noise through the communicator, and then it went silent. Clark looked up to see tendrils of black smoke starting to rise up from close to where Bruce had been positioned.

“Batman?”

There was no answer.

Clark was floating a foot in the air before he could think.

“Flash, can you see anything from your side?”

More silence, and apparently, all the communicators were down.

Damn it.

His eyes flicked towards Bruce’s location again.

He didn’t know when he’d fallen in love with Bruce. It had just kind of happened, over time, over thousands of interactions, some which had been incredibly important, some which had only been important to him.

He just knew that one day, they’d been in the middle of a meeting in the Watchtower, nothing particularly special, and he had looked at Bruce and thought, oh.

Oh.

As epiphanies went, it hadn’t been very momentous.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. For him, it’d been … everything.

But for Bruce? For their friendship and the team? Nothing had changed.

And why would it? It wasn’t as if Clark were going to tell Bruce how he felt, or act differently around him, or do anything so stupid as hope that one day … that one day Bruce would …

He wasn’t going to do that.

No matter how overly-optimistic Bruce claimed he was, Clark could tell fact from fiction, and when it came down to it, Bruce wasn’t attracted to him. He’d never displayed any of the physiological signs of arousal around him, nor had he ever leaned in close, just because, or touched him more than necessary, or found excuses to be together, just to be in each other’s presence. Not to say that they never spent time together outside of the Watchtower or on missions, or that they weren’t friends, because they had, and they were. But Bruce wasn’t interested in him, sexually or romantically, and it was as simple as that.

It had been a hard truth to accept, but Clark had had years to accomplish it. He valued Bruce’s friendship, more than he could say, and even if Bruce couldn’t love him the way he wanted, at least Clark could lay claim to some small part of his affection. It was enough for him, mostly, and it was more than a lot of people in his situation would ever get.

It didn’t mean that he couldn’t love Bruce, secretly, foolishly—but he hurt no one but himself.

He could be honest, though, and admit that it made fighting alongside Bruce hard. They all went open-eyed into danger, and it wasn’t as if he thought that Bruce would let him literally duke it out right next to him if they were in a romantic relationship. Their styles were too different for that to work, and besides, Bruce would’ve had words if he thought Clark were trying to watch over him instead of focusing on the enemy at hand.

There were, however, a few allowances a lover was allowed that a friend wasn’t; like openly worrying about him, and being able to check in with him periodically without getting incredulous silence in return, and being told the other person was alright when something exploded nearby.

Actually, those were the types of things Clark would expect out of any of League members, but Bruce was particularly bad about them.

Nonetheless, Clark knew better than to rush to Bruce’s side, no matter how much he wanted to. Bruce wouldn’t be happy he’d abandoned his area, and he’d be downright angry at the idea that Clark thought he wasn’t able to take care of himself—not that Clark believed that for one second, but that was how Bruce would see it.

So Clark stayed where he was, but his next swing took out dozens of robots—

And then all of the rest of robots simultaneously stopped. Turned. Stared up at Bruce’s location and then took off in his direction.

No.

Clark stopped hesitating, and seconds later, he was on the roof.

It was mayhem, the remains of robots littering the ground, smoke coming from what looked like a pile of wood pallets that had been left in a corner, which were now on fire. There was no sign of Bruce—where was he, where—

“Run!” Bruce yelled, and Clark raced towards his voice instead of away, over the side of the building to a lower section that he hadn’t noticed before, and there, at last, was Bruce, surrounded but still standing—

Clark wobbled in mid-air, and he landed heavily in order to keep himself from falling.

“Get out of here!”

There were several robots that were different from the ones he’d fought already, and each one had a small chunk of Kryptonite cradled in its open torso compartment, Clark realized as his gaze darted from one body to another.

“Damn it, can’t you listen for once in your life?” Bruce snarled as he crashed into him, green already tingeing Clark’s vision. They started to swing up into the air at the end of one of Bruce’s grappling hooks.

But Bruce hadn’t been able to generate much momentum from such a short swing, and Clark wasn’t a small man. It felt like he was watching in slow motion as several robots fired, the energy blasts aimed at Bruce’s back.

He had more than enough strength to twist his and Bruce’s bodies around.

-----

When he came to, Bruce was standing by his bed. He blinked sluggishly and took in Bruce’s face, obscured by the cowl and looking much more forbidding than usual, and he let out a long breath.

“Just how long—” He coughed and had to start again. “How long have you been waiting to yell at me?” he asked, wincing at how hoarse he sounded. He looked around, but it was just the two of them. Never a doctor around when you needed one.

“You’ve been unconscious for almost twenty one hours,” Bruce said, growled really with more than a touch of anger coloring his words, and whatever miniscule hope Clark had had about getting out of their conversation relatively unscathed died there.

“I’m fine, Bruce,” he said, and it was only a little bit of a lie.

“Is that what you call it?” Bruce said, his tone biting, and Clark winced.

“What else was I supposed to do? They were all converging on you—”

“I told you to run,” Bruce said, as if running had ever been an option for him, as if Bruce would’ve followed his own advice had the situation been reversed.

“The comms weren’t working, I didn’t know your condition, and I had no idea where Flash was. You know I couldn’t do that,” he said, beginning to get irritated himself.

“So instead you saw an obvious trap and dove head first into it.”

“When the only alternative was standing by and watching you get hurt or even killed? Yes!” He pushed back the solar panels that were meant to speed his healing along and carefully sat up, unwilling to be further subjected to Bruce’s tirade while lying down. He made sure to keep his expression annoyed so it wouldn’t hint at the aches and twinges in his body as he moved. The worst thing about Kryptonite was how the pain lingered afterwards, for weeks sometimes, even after he’d gotten his strength and abilities back. As if he needed a reminder to avoid being exposed. But he wasn’t going to tell Bruce about it, since Bruce already had enough weapons in his arsenal as to why Clark shouldn’t have rushed to help him.

“There was no way I could’ve known about the Kryptonite—”

“But you didn’t even think about the possibility, did you?” Bruce asked, folding his arms and scowling down at him. “You’re too complacent in your powers. You know that Luthor has it out for you specifically, that if anyone is going to be the target of one of his attacks, it’s going to be you, and you still go haring off—”

“Of course I thought about it! But just because Luthor hates me doesn’t mean that everyone else is safe! Luthor is an opportunist, and if he can take out a member of the League, he’ll do it.” Clark wished Bruce would understand. “Was I supposed to just stand back and watch because there was a chance I’d get hurt? That’s always a risk for everyone on the team, and I’d rather wake up in this bed each and every time there’s a fight than stand beside it because I hesitated. You act like there was a choice in the matter, Bruce, but there wasn’t. Not for me.”

There was a moment’s silence as Bruce considered his words, and Clark geared himself up for being told he’d made himself a liability instead, that he’d ended up putting Bruce in danger with his actions. Except Bruce cut his legs out from under him instead by saying flatly, “Because of your feelings for me.”

And Clark froze, staring blindly up at him.

“Because of your … crush.” The last word was heavy with dismissal.

Clark could suddenly hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, loud and frantic.

“Did you think I didn’t know?” Bruce asked, stepping closer, looming over him.

Didn't know? It wasn’t as if Clark hadn’t wondered, hadn’t swung between being absolutely certain at times that Bruce had to suspect, to being just as sure that Bruce was blissfully ignorant of how he felt. He’d done everything he could to always conceal his feelings whenever they were together, had never wanted to do anything to betray himself and put a wedge between them.

With the perfect clarity of hindsight, however, he realized how stupid it’d been to try and hide from Bruce, who not only was used to having people fall over themselves in order to be with him, but who also made a life out of observing and dissecting people’s most minute expressions and actions in order to discover the motivations underneath. Of course Bruce had known.

“I did you the courtesy of not mentioning it, because you’ve always managed to keep it under control before. After today, however, that’s no longer an option.”

Don’t, Clark thought, unable to get even the one word past his closed throat. But he knew it was already too late.

“I don’t want you,” Bruce said, excruciatingly blunt, and it was worse than all the Kryptonite Clark had been exposed to less than a day before, his heart shredding apart. “I have never wanted you, and I will never want you. You need to get that through your head, because you made a reckless, idiotic decision based on an emotion that will never be reciprocated.”

Clark flinched. It was a tiny movement, the barest turn of his head in reaction to being flayed alive, but he had no doubt that Bruce saw it, that it spurred him on.

“It’s gone on long enough. You need to get past this. We’re teammates, nothing more, and that’s all we’ll ever be,” Bruce said, the words coming so easily to him, as if he hadn’t denied any kind of friendship, as if he hadn’t just erased one of the most significant relationships in Clark’s life. “Do you understand?”

Did he? Clark wasn’t sure. He felt … lightheaded almost, completely unprepared for the barrage of Bruce’s attacks and left reeling in their wake, and he wanted to beg Bruce to stop. No more.

But what good would that do? Bruce knew he was hurting him. That was the point.

It took more strength than Clark had known he possessed to keep eye contact and nod his head, but he did it. Anything to get it over with faster.

“Do you really? You need to say it: ‘There is never going to be an us,’” Bruce said as the door to the infirmary opened, and Clark didn’t even know who it was, because he refused to be the first to look away, even with the humiliation that writhed in his chest. That, at least, was one thing he wouldn’t give Bruce.

“Umm …” Barry said, uneasiness dripping from his voice. “We’re just going to … come back later.”

We. So at least two of them, and it wasn’t a question of if they’d heard, but how much. Clark could’ve tried to listen to their heartbeats, but it would’ve been nearly impossible over the buzzing in his ears, and what did it matter in the end? The damage was done, had purposefully been done, because Bruce could’ve stopped talking when he’d heard the door start to slide open, but he’d chosen not to. Better to have an audience to make sure Clark really understood how serious Bruce was.

“No. I’m leaving,” Bruce said, turning away, and even after everything he’d said, Clark wanted to reach out and grab onto him, erase it all somehow and start again. But he didn’t, and he watched as Hal and Barry stepped awkwardly apart to make room for Bruce to walk past.

“You … okay there, Big Guy?”

“Yes,” Clark finally managed to rasp out an eternity later, and neither of them called him out on the lie.

-----

The first week was tough.

When Clark wasn’t working or looking for trouble, he was staring out into space, or reliving their mission, or doing any number of completely unproductive things and trying his damndest to not think about Bruce, or what he’d said, or how he’d said it.

He failed mostly.

The thing was that Clark had known that nothing would ever come from his feelings. Bruce didn’t allow himself romantic relationships—not on purpose anyway, even if a few lucky people had managed to sneak into his heart. Still, all Clark had ever counted on was a place by Bruce’s side as his friend.

But this?

Acknowledging Clark’s hidden feelings after all this time and revealing that they’d never been hidden in the first place? Belittling the depth of his emotions and then humiliating him on top of all the rest of it?

Because of your … crush.

Clark had always known Bruce had a cruel streak, had been a victim of its bite before, but he would never have thought Bruce would go this far. Because it’d all been planned. Maybe not Barry and Hal walking in—although Clark honestly couldn’t put it past him—but the effect it’d have on him.

You made a reckless, idiotic decision based on an emotion that will never be reciprocated.

Bruce had weighed out each word and chosen the ones that would bleed him the most, and Clark just—

He bowed his head, covering his face with his hands, his elbows on his knees as he sat in his armchair.

He spent most of the first week grieving, not for the relationship that would never be, but for the hope that he’d harbored that he’d concealed even from himself.

The second week was worse.

Clark hadn’t realized how much he’d made Bruce a part of his life. It wasn’t that they saw each other that frequently, but Clark had talked to him two or three times a week, about the League or about the going-ons in their respective cities, and it wasn’t uncommon for the conversations to move past the initial subject and touch on more personal matters. Sometimes, they’d left the communicators on while they worked on their own tasks, only speaking occasionally but keeping each other company.

Clark had thought it meant … more than it had, but obviously he’d been wrong. Bruce hadn’t called him since that day—another courtesy perhaps—and Clark didn’t know when the next time he’d be able to bring himself to call Bruce would be. Not for a while, he suspected.

He missed it, though, all of it, missed Bruce, even while railing at himself because he knew that he shouldn’t and that Bruce certainly didn’t miss him. No matter how frequently he lectured himself, however, his feelings didn’t stop just because he wanted them to or because they weren’t returned. It was going to take time, time that seemed to stretch on endlessly at the moment, but he knew that was just his own skewed perceptions. One day, it’d get better.

He just wanted that one day to be today.

At least he’d never given into the foolhardy urge to kiss Bruce, to say damn it all and just press his lips to his and hope for the best. At least it wasn’t one more weight tugging on his chest, on his skin, his bones, wasn’t one more memory crying out in the lonely halls of his mind for Bruce.

“Okay, I leave for ten days and come back to find you looking like death warmed over. What gives, Clark?” Lois asked as she set her things down at her desk.

“Would you believe I came down with something?” he asked, smiling at her tiredly, because even though things hadn’t worked out between them, he would always have a smile for Lois.

“Not so much,” she said, and when it looked like she was going to roll her chair over to his desk, he shook his head.

“How about after work?” he asked, because he couldn’t right now. Being at the Planet was his escape from thinking about what had happened, one of the few things that had nothing to do with the League or Bruce, and he needed the separation, needed to keep things tucked away into their own neat little corners.

She looked at him. “Alright, after work it is. But I’m warning you now, I refuse to get takeout from that Chinese place you like again. I don’t know how you eat there.”

“They have good eggrolls,” he defended himself by rote, taking the offered diversion.

“A person can’t live on eggrolls alone, Clark.”

They bickered good-naturedly for a while until they had to start concentrating on their separate projects, and for the first time since the fight, he found himself looking forward to the end of the day. It wasn’t that he wanted to talk about it, but it was comforting knowing that he wasn’t going to be alone for a while. He didn’t exactly have many friends that he just sat around with—the focus was more on doing things with other members of the League—or that he felt comfortable enough with to be as sad as he felt. He wasn’t up for pretending to have fun; it was too much to handle right now.

Maybe with Bruce; but then … even with him, Clark wouldn’t have had to say anything. Bruce would’ve just known. Not that he would’ve asked or suggested they talk about it, but Bruce had always had a way of making Clark’s burdens easier to bear.

Or at least, he had.

“Alright, Smallville. Talk,” Lois said when they were sitting in his apartment, the remains of their dinner in front of him.

“There’s not much to say,” he said, picking at the label on his beer bottle. He could see her start to glare from the corner of his eye. “There was a mission. Some Kryptonite.”

She inhaled sharply but didn’t interrupt.

“I’m fine, Lois. Really,” he said, smiling reassuringly at her. There was just the residual pain, but it hardly pinged on his radar considering everything else.

“I didn’t know about the Kryptonite until I went to give Batman some backup. I got hurt, but the others managed to wrap things up.”

That had been Hal, who’d been called in when Clark had gone down, and Barry mostly. After Clark had been teleported out, Bruce had continued following the digital trail until he’d discovered Luthor had located a deposit of Kryptonite under the factory and had just begun mining it. Thus, all the robots.

“Afterward … afterward, Batman informed me that he was tired of my crush—” Clark had to pause for a second, take a swig of beer to coat his dry throat, “—and that I needed to get over it. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Oh, Clark,” she said, and Clark was grateful that she was sitting on the couch and he was in his armchair, because he couldn’t have handled her touching him without wanting to crumble. Lois knew all about his feelings for Batman, because although their romantic relationship had ended, their friendship had survived. Not that it hadn’t been odd telling her about it, stranger even than hearing about her own dates, although he didn’t know why that was, but they’d pushed past the awkwardness, and he valued her companionship dearly. “Why would he say something like that?”

“Apparently, I make ‘reckless, idiotic decisions,’” Clark said, and even to his own ears, he sounded bitter.

“Well … I mean, I wouldn’t call them idiotic,” she said, then at the look on Clark’s face, hurriedly followed up with, “You want to protect people, especially the ones you love. First and foremost, that is what you do.”

“And is that such a bad thing?” he asked in a low voice, feeling gutted all over again by her seeming agreement with Bruce.

“No, of course not, Clark.” She moved until she was at the end of the couch and grabbed his hand, holding onto him fiercely. “That is a great thing. That is one of the best things about you. You care, and you throw yourself into the fire so other people don’t have to, and yes, sometimes it is reckless, but most of the time, it’s exactly what people need, and if he can’t see that, well ... well then he’s as blind as a bat.”

He groaned and shook his head, but he didn’t let go of her. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Oh, come on. How frequently do I get the chance to pull out the bat jokes? I mean, really,” she said lightly, her thumb stroking the back of his hand, and not for the first time, he wished that it had worked out between them.

His death, however, had changed things for the both of them, and their relationship had never recovered.

And then, of course, there’d been Bruce.

“Thanks for tonight,” he said, hours later as they stood on her roof.

”Beats a taxi, every time,” she said as he set her down, and he’d laughed like she’d wanted him to.

“Always. As a matter of fact, why don’t you come over Friday night?” she said, and he knew her well enough to recognize the concern in her eyes, even if she tried to hide it. “I’ll make my famous spaghetti and meatballs.”

“In other words, pick them up from Vino’s on your way home.”

“It works for me, Clark. Don’t ruin a good thing.”

He smiled. “Look, I appreciate the offer, Lois, I do,” he said, grateful but unwilling to monopolize her evenings. “You don’t have to worry about me, though—”

“Ha, as if.” She opened the stairwell door, and apparently, the discussion was over. “Bring ice cream. Two kinds!” she called up as she made her way downstairs. “And don’t be stingy; get the good stuff.”

“I know, I know,” he said and waited until he saw her enter her apartment before taking off. Truth be told, he felt a little guilty for giving in so easily, but he could admit that knowing he had something to look forward to on Friday night other than just silence and too many memories meant more than he could say.

The third week, he saw Bruce.

It wasn’t for long, just an hour during a briefing at the Watchtower. He exchanged a few civil sentences with him in order to clarify a point, and the rest of the time, all he had to do was sit and listen and pretend that his heart wasn’t eating itself in his chest.

Six weeks after the fight, Clark was doing a lot better. He was far from perfect, but he’d found an equilibrium. He no longer felt like he had to drink Bruce in with his eyes every time he saw him, nor did he feel like had to avoid him for fear of being depressed for the rest of the day.

He did, however, tend to avoid any situation where they could be alone together.

It wasn’t that Clark loved Bruce less, or admired him less, or had stopped being able to see all the things that had made him fall in love with Bruce in the first place. He just … didn’t want to be around him at the moment, found himself wondering what else Bruce would say to get his point across, what else he’d do to make sure Clark kept his distance.

Just because his body was invulnerable didn’t mean his heart was—but then, Bruce hadn’t believed he had a heart when they’d first met, and maybe that was what all of this came down to. Whatever else he might be, he was still an alien first and foremost, and maybe it was no one’s fault but his own that Clark had ever thought Bruce had come to believe otherwise.

Nearly three months in, Bruce asked for his help with a shipment of large-scale assault weapons and explosives that was coming in a few miles from Gotham.

“Ah … yes, of course. When do you want me?” he asked and immediately winced at his poor choice of words.

There seemed to be the barest pause before Bruce spoke, but Clark knew better than to dwell on it.

“Two o’clock tonight.”

“Alright, just send me the location.”

Another pause, and Clark wondered if Bruce needed anything else—and then the call disconnected. Apparently not.

The first thing Bruce told him as he came up was, “The ship’s late. We’ve got anywhere from one to three hours before it gets here.”

“Alright,” Clark said, because what else could he say? No, I refuse to be an adult and spend a second longer in your company than I have to? Yeah, that’d go over well. Besides, he needed to start getting comfortable around Bruce again outside of the infrequent group mission. For all their differences, they’d always worked well together—with the exception of the past few months. Even then, however, their professional interaction might’ve been a little bumpy, but it’d still been good overall, and he didn’t want to lose that because of what had happened.

No matter what Bruce had implied, Clark took his responsibilities seriously. He’d worried right after everything, that he’d rushed in too fast, that he’d let his feelings get in the way. But every time he’d analyzed the situation again, he’d always come to the same conclusion: he would’ve tried to help whomever had been in Bruce’s place. Lois had been right. It was what he did, it was who he was, and maybe that made him a reckless fool, but so be it then.

Bruce wasn’t the type to pick his vantage point based on comfort, so Clark sat on the floor, his back to the wall, and looked toward the small dock where the ship was supposed to come in, listening for any chatter among the henchmen also awaiting the ship’s arrival that could be of any use. He didn’t actively try to avoid looking at Bruce, but he also didn’t let his eyes slide to the side whenever there was the odd rustle or noise either, like he would’ve done before.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Bruce said nearly thirty minutes later, and Clark did glance at him then in surprise. Batman wasn’t exactly known for making small talk. Clark hadn’t let that stop him in the past, drawing Bruce into conversation when it was just the two of them, even if it was just to discuss whatever mission they were on. He would’ve thought Bruce would prefer the silence—but maybe he was testing Clark to see what would happen, to judge if there’d been any change in his behavior.

“Just keeping an ear out,” he said and then because he wasn’t trying to shut Bruce out, he added, “And maybe doing a little work in my head. I’ve got a deadline tomorrow morning, and this article’s been giving me trouble.”

“What’s it about?” Bruce asked, looking out at the water through his binoculars, and Clark had thought he’d take the opportunity for them to be quiet, but that was fine.

“It’s just a fluff piece that I have to make sound more interesting than it actually is. You know how it goes.”

“The subject?” Bruce asked, no hint of impatience in his voice, which was unusual for him, since he didn’t like asking a question twice. Although Clark didn’t understand why he was even bothering. It didn’t have anything to do with this part of their lives, and Bruce had already asked enough to be polite. Not that Bruce typically made an effort to be polite, but still.

The thought floated in his head that maybe Bruce was trying to reinitiate their weekly conversations, which seemed unlikely, but if so … Clark wasn’t ready for that yet. He didn’t think he was going to be ready for a long time without it meaning something different to him than to Bruce.

Too much time was stretching between Bruce’s question and his response, but he honestly didn’t know how to answer, and—

He stood up. “I still don’t see the ship, but I can hear a speed boat coming in from behind that embankment.”

And that was the end of that, thank goodness.

By the time everything was wrapped up, Clark had been shot with streams of bullets, taken two rockets to the chest, and destroyed an AAV. He was pretty happy all in all. They’d stopped the shipment from getting into the wrong hands, and Bruce had discovered the name of the supplier. It’d been a good night.

“Alright, I’m taking off,” Clark said as they watched from an appropriate distance away while the police start loading everyone up. The sun was going to rise in another hour. “Catch you later, B,” he said, the nickname falling from his lips carelessly, and he sobered, his satisfaction turning dull.

“Going to finish up your article?” Bruce asked, neutrally enough, not mentioning Clark’s slip.

He hesitated, once again caught off guard by Bruce asking about something outside of the League. “Gotta pay the bills somehow,” he said and thought he did a fair job of keeping his words light. “Goodni—”

“Clark,” Bruce said, just his name, but Clark stopped. Bruce was quiet for a long time, long enough that Clark started considering taking off, rudeness be damned. But then Bruce finally spoke.

“When I told you we were teammates,” he said, dragging out the word slightly, “and nothing more—”

“Don’t worry,” Clark interrupted, and there went any hope of hiding anything. Even to his own ears, he sounded strange and distant, although it wasn’t something he was doing on purpose. He just wanted to spare the both of them from a repeat of their last conversation. He didn’t know why Bruce was bringing it up—maybe he was just making sure Clark wouldn’t get the wrong idea after working together again, just the two of them. If so, he needn’t have worried. Bruce had made it clear that Clark wasn’t a friend, in word and deed, and Clark was done trying to convince him otherwise.

People didn’t treat their friends the way Bruce had treated Clark. If Clark had had a friend who harbored romantic feelings for him and he’d found out, he would’ve done everything in his power to let them down gently and cushion the blow as much as possible. Bruce, however, had treated him as an annoyance, with anger, as if Clark had harassed him and demanded his attention, not once but multiple times.

And in Bruce’s eyes, maybe that had been true. Maybe Clark’s feelings had been naked and obnoxious, which had never been his intention, and he’d done everything he could to keep them secret, but then, Bruce had always been better at reading people than he was. Maybe Bruce had tried to be patient with him, hoping Clark’s feelings would fade with time, but after over two years of avoiding mentioning anything, Bruce had finally snapped. Whatever the reason, Bruce had made the lines very clear. They weren’t friends, and Clark didn’t want Bruce to feel uncomfortable about what was only the truth.

“I understood.”

Bruce looked away. “Yes,” he said, and Clark didn’t recognize whatever emotion was in Bruce’s voice, but then, he didn’t really want to. “I suppose you did.”

Clark nodded and then took to the sky before Bruce could say anything else.

-----

Three and a half months after the Luthor incident, Wayne Enterprises purchased the Daily Planet.

“What?” Clark asked, probably a little louder than necessary and to the general amusement of everyone else. Perry rolled his eyes.

“You heard me. Wayne says he’s not planning to change the day-to-day running of the paper, but I trust that as much as I trust my dentist right after he says ‘this will only hurt a bit.’ He’s supposed to come in today, so everyone on your best behavior, and if he tries to talk business, start asking him questions about himself. It’s the best tool against any narcissist and should distract him long enough for him to forget whatever he was saying.”

Thankfully, that was the end of the staff meeting, because Clark wouldn’t have been able to pay attention to anything else, too focused on the question of why Bruce hadn’t given him a little warning.

For one surreal moment, Clark wondered if Bruce had been asking about the article because he’d been worried about protecting his investment.

Then he realized how ridiculous that was and moved on. It wasn’t Bruce’s responsibility to report in on his business transactions to Clark.

Even if this particular purchase had everything to do with him.

He tried to stop thinking about it, but by lunchtime, he was more than a little upset.

It was just another piece of proof how little regard Bruce had for him—as if Clark had needed his face rubbed in it any more. Worse than that, however, was that the Planet was his space, and even though they’d probably only see each other once or twice a year because of this, the knowledge that Bruce was his boss would hang over him constantly.

By the time Bruce Wayne waltzed into the building near five, Clark was angry enough that he knew he couldn’t meet Bruce in public without causing a scene, so as he heard the whispers of Bruce’s name starting on the first floor, Clark made his escape. Perry would be annoyed since Lois was gone until tomorrow as well, but Clark would have to make his apologies later. He just couldn’t handle it today.

It was one of those nights that if Clark had been able to get drunk, he would’ve, but he consoled himself that at least he’d avoided the brunt of Bruce’s attention.

Which was why he was so surprised when he went in the next day just to have Perry tell him—after a three minute rant about Benedict Arnold and loyalty and facing the music—that he was assigned the piece on Wayne buying the Planet.

“Me?”

“Wayne requested it himself. Said he liked the piece you did a couple weeks back about the Mayor’s wife’s birthday regatta, and if you could make that sound good, you’d make him ‘positively scintillating in comparison.’ His words, not mine.”

“But—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Stuff it, Clark, you’re doing this. He said he’d leave a note on your desk with a time and location for an interview, which you would know if you hadn’t taken off and made me into your messenger boy. Try not to make him sound like too much of an ass, but I’m not expecting miracles.”

And that was how Clark found himself standing outside of Bruce’s hotel room, wondering what he’d ever done to deserve this.

He was waiting until he felt composed to knock on the door, but it’d been five minutes so far, and he still wasn’t ready.

Well, he’d just have to wait another five minutes, and another five on top of that if necessary until—

The door opened, because of course it did.

“I could feel you brooding from inside,” Bruce said in the worst case of the pot calling the kettle black that Clark had ever heard. Bruce was smiling with his just-shy-of-sincere smile that Bruce Wayne did so well, and Clark had to stifle the urge to frown in response.

“Mr. Wayne,” he said instead. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Yes, you seem very excited about the opportunity,” Bruce said blandly before stepping aside to let him in. “Please. Come in, Mr. Kent.”

He did, heading for the seating area and maybe setting his things down slightly harder than he meant to next to the seat that didn’t have a snifter of alcohol next to it. Bruce was apparently starting early, although Clark wasn’t there to discuss his drinking habits, and while it was tempting to ignore the elephant in the room and just get the interview over and done with, Clark wasn’t in the habit of running away from a fight.

“You could’ve told me,” he said, turning towards Bruce.

“I could have,” Bruce agreed, still standing near the door, “but it didn’t seem like you wanted to hear from me lately.”

It was true, but it wasn’t an excuse. “You’re blaming me? We saw each other less than three weeks ago—”

“Of course I’m not blaming you! It wasn’t a criticism so much as an observation. I just meant—” Bruce broke off, and it was rare to see him fumble for words. “I didn’t make the decision to purchase the Planet until after that,” Bruce said, derailing Clark for a moment, because Bruce had no reason to lie. But only a moment.

“You could’ve at least told me you were thinking about it, though—”

“Clark,” Bruce said, sighing. “I wasn’t thinking about it then.”

“What does that mean? You can’t … you expect me to believe that you just randomly felt like buying the Planet and then finalized the purchase in a few weeks?” Clark asked incredulously, because surely that was impossible. Those kind of deals took months to iron out.

“I do expect that, because that is what actually happened. I only made the decision five days ago,” Bruce said, finally moving into the room in order to go to the bar and pour himself a new drink, as if his first glass didn’t have more in it. He took a healthy gulp as Clark watched, his mind reeling. Five days? Perry had told them two days ago, so Bruce had purchased the Planet with all the accompanying negotiations and legal acrobatics in three days?

“The reason behind it wasn’t random, however. Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

He blinked at Bruce. “I assume it’s because you want to expand your news holdings, or get a larger footprint in Metropolis, but why you couldn’t—”

“I did it,” Bruce said, carefully setting his glass down, “because I needed a way to talk to you without you leaving at the earliest possible opportunity, and this seemed the best way to do it.”

Clark realized his mouth was hanging open, and he closed it.

“What?” he asked finally, not believing his ears. Bruce wouldn’t have bought the Planet in order to—to chat. That didn’t make sense. There had to be more to his decision than that, and Clark forced himself to not think up crazy scenarios, to not take the pieces of evidence and start believing the picture they were making, because Bruce always had reasons on top of reasons for doing something, and the obvious ones were rarely correct.

“Clark,” Bruce said, emotion finally breaking through his calm facade, “about what I said at the Watchtower—”

Clark tensed all over, his body gearing up for a fight without his conscious permission.

Bruce noticed, because he wouldn’t be Bruce if he didn’t, and he closed his eyes for a second before saying heavily, “I wanted to apologize.”

Clark didn’t mean to, but he tensed even more.

“I regret what I said and did, more than I can say,” Bruce told him, and there was something about his expression that made Clark look down. “I was inexcusably cruel. You have every right to hate me, and I know,” Bruce said, his voice going even lower, “that it’s no less than I deserve.”

“I don’t hate you, Bruce,” he said quietly, staring at his hands, not knowing what to say or how to feel, but knowing he had to at least say that.

“You should. That would be right. That would be just.”

Just? It was an odd turn of phrase. After what Bruce had done, Clark could see how anger and humiliation could turn into something cold and hard, could see how some people would learn in hate him in response. That was cause and effect, though, not justice, as Bruce well knew. Justice would be for Bruce to fall—

“I never hated you,” Clark said, not knowing what his brain was doing but wanting no part of it. “And if you want my forgiveness, then you have it.”

“Do I? Clark, look at me. Please.”

Clark lips thinned, but he did as requested, staring up at Bruce and trying to keep his turmoil to himself. He doubted that he managed to accomplish it, but at least Bruce looked rough as well, the lines in his face deeper than the last time Clark had seen him without his mask.

“I’m so damn sorry,” Bruce said, a pleading note in his voice, as if he were trying to convince Clark, although he needn’t have worried. Clark believed him, believed that Bruce wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to talk to him if he weren’t sincere. Clark just … didn’t know what to do with Bruce’s apology.

He’d come in thinking they were going to argue, or try to get through the interview, or talk about anything really other than what they were actually talking about, and it felt like Bruce was laying him bare all over again. He meant it when he said he forgave Bruce, but after so long, he didn’t know that it changed anything. Not right now at least.

“I’ve missed you,” Bruce said, the words so soft and tentative that Clark wondered if he’d meant to say them at all, and Clark’s eyes snapped to his.

He had tried his best, his fucking best, to get over Bruce. He couldn’t say that he’d completely succeeded, didn’t know if he’d ever carve Bruce entirely out of him, but he’d tried and tried and was able to think about Bruce, look at him, talk to him, and not feel like he was going to break apart.

It hadn’t been easy to cover the Bruce-sized hole in his life, and he’d gone through stages of anger and sorrow and false-acceptance with longing running through his veins each and every day. There’d been times when he’d nearly been overwhelmed with the temptation to try to find some way to insert himself back in Bruce’s life, to pretend their talk had never happened, and to wheedle a tenth, a hundredth, of Bruce’s attention that he’d had before. Except, then he’d remember.

I don’t want you. I have never wanted you, and I will never want you.

And he’d struggled through another day without him.

But this.

He didn’t even know why Bruce admitting that he missed him affected him so much, especially knowing he meant it purely platonically, but it did. It made him look for and find meanings that weren’t there, made him hope even though Bruce had ground hope to dust once already. And Clark just … he just couldn’t.

“You know what? We should … really get the interview started,” Clark said faintly, finally sitting down, and it was a blatant and obvious change of subject, but he needed time to process and think things through rationally, and he couldn’t do that with Bruce there. “I mean, you probably have places to be, and Perry’s going to have my hide if I don’t finish my article.”

He pulled his things out of his bag, trying to pretend the silence around them didn’t exist, which became harder and harder to do the longer it lasted.

“Alright,” Bruce said finally, and Clark didn’t let himself think about how subdued he sounded, how defeated. “Alright. What would you like to know?” He took his seat across from Clark, lifting up his neglected glass and draining it in one go.

-----

Clark was on the phone with Lois for a long time after she got back into town, assuring her that he was fine, that it was surprise but nothing he couldn’t handle. He could tell that she didn’t believe him, but he was able to keep her from coming over at least, which was a relief.

He didn’t sleep much that night, even though he’d been up most of the previous night as well. He’d thought he was done losing sleep over Bruce, but apparently, that’d been foolish on his part.

Considering the cut and dried nature of the piece he had to write, the article had taken an embarrassingly long time to hash out. Most of that, however, was due to the fact that he’d kept lingering on Bruce’s apology, on separating the things he’d wanted to hear from the things Bruce had actually said.

This was what he knew: Bruce regretted the way he’d let him down, had thought about what had happened more than once, had stopped and planned out what the best way to get Clark to talk to him.

Bruce had missed him.

He had to breathe deeply at the memory of Bruce’s disclosure, remind himself that even if it were true, it’d still taken Bruce nearly four months to reach out to him.

And that was the danger, wasn’t it, that Clark’s brain wanted to believe that if Bruce cared for him this much, then surely Bruce could come to care for him even more. It was an insidious thought, and one that he’d thought he’d erased by now.

You made a reckless, idiotic decision based on an emotion that will never be reciprocated.

The fact of the matter was that Bruce wasn’t ever going to fall in love with him. And Clark needed to get his head on straight before he talked to Bruce again.

He shouldn’t want Bruce’s love anymore. And he didn’t.

Mostly.

He closed his eyes at that, wishing like hell that it weren’t true. But it was. Still. After all this time. And it was like donning a well-worn hair shirt when he started to wonder, when the cycle of “what ifs” began all over again, no matter how pointless they were.

Fuck.

Four months was no time at all.

He got up from his couch and walked out the door, hoping to find clarity in the cold and the silence of the stratosphere.

It took nearly a half-hour of flying before he was able to organize his thoughts. It came down to friendship. That was all Bruce had admitted to missing and what Bruce was trying to salvage.

Knowing that, knowing that Bruce wanted only that, what did Clark want to do?

Today hadn’t erased everything that had happened.

But it wasn’t as if Clark could claim that he’d been unaware Bruce had a difficult time with anything that made him feel vulnerable, and as far as apologies went, Bruce had made a pretty big statement with purchasing a newspaper in order to talk to Clark. The Planet was a private company, so the actual numbers hadn’t been released, but it was rumored to be valued at over $40 million dollars. If the deal had gone down in three days, Bruce had probably paid top dollar for it. It was an excessive, intrusive, and ridiculous show of remorse, not even as the apology itself but as a means of giving the apology. Clark had no idea what Bruce had been thinking to assume that was alright—but as an indication of how much their friendship meant to Bruce, it went a long way to soothe the jagged edges in Clark’s heart.

Besides, if he were being completely fair, had Bruce really said anything Clark hadn’t needed to hear? Yes, the delivery had been as horrible as Bruce could make it, but the words themselves? Didn’t Bruce have the right to tell someone he wasn’t interested? Clark had been in love with Bruce for years, but he’d never tried this hard to force himself to stop. If Bruce hadn’t said what he’d said, how he’d said it, would anything have changed?

Probably not. Clark had been too blinded, too caught up in his own wants and desires to think about it from Bruce’s side. He’d been selfish, he realized, and what right did he have to be angry that Bruce had called him out on it?

Maybe it’d be better now, though. Maybe he could be better, so their friendship would be all the stronger for having gone through this.

Wasn’t that what he wanted the most after all? Bruce in his life, as a friend and companion?

Yes, he thought, his heart curling within him, aching enough that Clark put his hand to his chest, as if he could soothe it somehow. It wasn’t all that he’d wanted in the past, wasn’t all that he wanted now, but it was the most important part. Yes.

As long as he was vigilant, as long as he never loved Bruce the way he had before, it’d be okay. Clark would make it okay. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

-----

“Mr. Wayne,” he said, surprise tinging his voice. He looked around the crowded floor of the Planet where it felt like everyone was watching them. Because they were. “What are you doing here?”

He’d assumed he’d see Bruce soon. Just ... not that soon.

“We didn’t finish talking yesterday,” Bruce said, idly picking up a polished stone polar bear Clark had purchased during his time wandering around the arctic.

“Er, we didn’t?”

“No,” Bruce said, flashing a smile as he tossed the bear up and then fumbled it on the way down. He didn’t actually drop it, of course, but still. Bruce Wayne wasn’t known for being clumsy, but he was known for being careless, and Clark didn’t want to lose his bear for the sake of verisimilitude.

“We can go to a conference room,” Clark said reluctantly, plucking it out of his hands and putting it safely back on his desk. He didn’t actually want to offer, suspected he knew exactly what they were going to talk about and wouldn’t mind avoiding it for another few days, but the public space made it difficult for Clark to get away without it being suspicious. “If you’d like?”

“Sounds good. Lead the way, Mr. Kent.”

Clark sighed silently and picked a room that was rarely in use, too small and isolated to be a favorite.

“Is it League business?” he asked as soon as the door closed but without much hope. He felt bad for wishing for some kind of catastrophe, but he was kind of exhausted from all the emotional ups and downs of the past couple of days and didn’t look forward to jumping back into them. He wanted to resolve things with Bruce, he did, especially since it seemed like it’d be a resolution that would lead them back to becoming friends. But it didn’t have to be right now. He would’ve appreciated the time to get used to the idea of Bruce in his life again. Maybe it was different for Bruce, though, and Clark could understand, knew that if he were the one in the wrong, he’d want to make things right as soon as possible … except as soon as possible had passed by long ago, and Clark was incredibly tired of all of it.

Bruce shook his head and then didn’t say anything at all, long enough for Clark to start wondering if he should fill in the silence, although with what, he didn’t know, but then Bruce sighed and rubbed at his temple.

“It should not be this hard to talk about this,” he growled, seemingly to himself, and that was … Clark didn’t know what that was, but it made him feel a twinge of guilt, even though he knew it was unwarranted. It was obvious that Bruce felt he needed to keep trying to make things better, and maybe Clark wasn’t ready for any more gestures, but he could admit that he appreciated that Bruce wanted to.

“Bruce, it’s okay. Really. I don’t need any more apologies,” he said, and it was true insofar that he didn’t want anymore of them. After a moment’s hesitation, he put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder to shake him gently. It felt odd and vaguely wrong to be touching Bruce after all this time, and Clark had to stifle the urge to pull away.

“It’s not okay,” Bruce said tiredly, and Clark wondered if he imagined the way Bruce leaned into his hand for a second before straightening. “I still haven’t told you why I did it.”

Clark wasn’t prepared for the sharp pang in his chest, and he did move away then.

“Will you give me a chance to explain?” Bruce asked, humble in a way that Clark had rarely witnessed before, and he hesitated before nodding jerkily.

“I knew how you felt,” Bruce said, to the point as always, and the shadow of humiliation from four months ago washed over Clark. “I honestly thought that it was temporary, though, that you’d realize the profanity of having feelings for someone who’d tried to kill you. Who’d succeeded.”

He jerked, opening his mouth to argue, to come to Bruce’s defense, but Bruce continued on.

“I told myself that it was just a matter of time. Obviously, you’d move on one day, as you should, and as long as I didn’t actively encourage your feelings, then what harm did they really do?” he said, and Clark wanted to tell him to stop, knew what was coming next, but he felt frozen. “Four months ago, we got the answer to that question when you saw me in danger and nearly died trying to protect me.”

Clark could see Bruce’s jaw clench, but he felt like he was watching it from miles away. Bruce had already told him that he shouldn’t have tried to save him, but he hadn’t looked past the explanation Bruce had thrown at him, hadn’t imagined how much more there was behind it.

“It was my fault. I’d been complicit. I’d let you get too close instead of stopping things as soon as I realized how you felt. And on top of all the rest of it, you rushed in to defend me. I might as well have been carrying the Kryptonite myself.” Bruce’s eyes were burning when he said, “You asked me that day, what else you were supposed to do. My answer is, anything but what you did, Clark. Anything else but that.”

“Bruce,” Clark whispered, and it felt like something was cracking apart within him, little slivers of pain burrowing inside of him. He’d thought he’d done such a good job of protecting what was left of his heart from Bruce’s rejection, but he’d been wrong.

It hurt to love Bruce. He’d forgotten how much.

“The only solution at that point was to make sure you never decided to sacrifice yourself for my sake again. Not for me,” Bruce rasped, barely getting the last three words out, and Clark couldn’t do it at anymore, couldn’t listen to Bruce lay himself bare as some sort of penance, and he reached out to pull Bruce into a hug without any of the hesitation from before—

“There are things you come to believe in,” Bruce said, his voice quiet and low, “and you believe in them so completely that they become truths that form the foundation of your everyday life, and you don’t think about them. They just are, and they sit in the back of your mind and give comfort when comfort is needed, and you hold them dear to you, and you forget,” he said and paused, clearing his throat. “You forget that they aren’t actually fact, that they can change or be destroyed and that they need to be handled with care. Then one day, they’re gone, and the foundation that had been so strong before is like sand now, and no matter how much you try to rebuild, everything collapses around you.”

“That’s enough, Bruce,” Clark said, dragging him in and wrapping his arms around him, but it was Bruce who crushed Clark to him, who held onto him like he couldn’t stand it otherwise. “I get it. It’s okay. We’re okay,” he said softly next to Bruce’s ear, and this time, it actually felt true.

Bruce had tried to raze their friendship to the ground, burning and salting everything in his wake in a misguided attempt to protect Clark from himself, and if Clark hadn’t been so relieved and knocked off-kilter by everything he’d just learned, he probably would’ve been a lot more upset about that fact. No wonder Bruce had taken so long to come back to him. He’d been battling himself the whole time, weighing his need to keep Clark safe with his desire to mend the rift between them.

They were going to revisit Bruce’s high-handedness in the future, but for now, Clark was just too grateful to be able to yell at Bruce about his continued belief that he knew what was best for everyone else.

Even when it meant hurting himself in the process.

He hugged Bruce harder.

There are things you come to believe in, and you believe in them so completely that they become truths that form the foundation of your everyday life.

To think that Bruce had—did—care about him that much. And Clark hadn’t known. He hadn’t even suspected that Bruce felt—

You’d realize the profanity of having feelings for someone who’d tried to kill you.

That he—

As long as I didn’t actively encourage your feelings, then what harm did they really do?

But Bruce didn’t—

I’d let you get too close instead of stopping things as soon as I realized how you felt.

Clark might not have been the detective that Bruce was, but even he could piece all the clues together when they were dropped so neatly at his feet.

Bruce had known about Clark’s feelings, but he hadn’t ever said anything about them. He’d let Clark get closer and closer still and hadn’t tried to put an end to things until he’d felt there was no other choice. He’d spent months missing him until it’d become too much for him, and then he’d come back to Clark, asking for forgiveness.

He loved him.

“Bruce?” Clark said, disbelieving.

For a second, it seemed like Bruce hadn’t heard, but then he finally sighed and stepped back, disentangling himself from Clark. The expression on his face was all the confirmation that Clark needed, but Bruce still said quietly, “I don’t expect anything,” and Clark could feel the world shifting under his feet, destroying any and all chance at equilibrium.

“What?” he asked, so faint it was nearly inaudible.

“I know … I know what I’ve done,” Bruce said as Clark looked on, growing angry, a trembling itch under his skin that Bruce would do this to the both of them, that Bruce would pull at the string between them until it snapped and then stare at the frayed ends, as if he had no idea what to do with them now.

Clark waited for him to say more, but Bruce was silent, his eyes roaming over Clark’s face in little jerks and starts.

“What you’ve done?” he echoed, as if Bruce had accidentally broken Clark’s bear statue after all instead of making Clark feel like he’d been walking around half-dead for months. “If you don’t expect anything, then why tell me?” he said, low and grating, although of course Bruce hadn’t actually said the words themselves, letting himself be vulnerable but never too much.

“You had the right to know.”

Did he? Because Bruce expected Clark to reject him as brutally as Bruce had done to him? The idea gave him no satisfaction.

“Why tell me now?” Clark demanded, because Bruce could’ve chosen to apologize without hinting at his feelings.

“If not now,” Bruce said, looking away, his mouth twisting, “then when? When even the memory of your feelings for me is gone?”

“It was what you wanted,” he managed to rasp out, and he hadn’t thought Bruce could hurt him much more than he’d already had. He’d been wrong.

“It was what I asked for, yes,” Bruce said, his voice heavy. Accepting. “I didn’t realize what it’d mean. For you to actually stop.”

“It wasn’t part of your calculations?” Clark asked and immediately regretted his words, petty and bitter, although his anger kept him from apologizing. It was true after all. Bruce had orchestrated all of this. And now that he’d discovered that he hadn’t liked the consequences, he wanted to take it back.

In that moment, Clark didn’t know if the regret on Bruce’s face was genuine or not.

“I thought I’d … adjust to the reality of it better.”

“Yeah, it’s never easy knowing that the person you love doesn’t love you back,” Clark said, and then immediately closed his eyes, covering his face with his hand, and breathed. Just breathed.

What was he doing? This wasn’t him. He didn’t want to be this person.

“No,” Bruce agreed, and Clark marveled at the pain his his voice, didn’t know what to do with the realization that he was the one to cause it. “It’s not.”

Bruce’s words from the day before popped into his head.

That would be right. That would be just.

Was that what Bruce would call this in the days to come? Justice? Because it seemed to Clark that it was two people hurting each other past the point where either could bear it, and he hated it.

Neither of them spoke then, the silence dragging on and on. It wasn’t that Clark didn’t want to respond, he just didn’t know how. He felt vaguely sick, and there was a buzzing in his ears, and Bruce loved him. While he understood the words individually, their combined meaning seemed to elude him. Everything he’d gone through, everything he’d thought he’d known about Bruce’s feelings for him, none of it made sense anymore.

Bruce had lied to him, had driven him away, and now …

Clark just didn’t know. He still loved Bruce; he couldn’t deny that. But he had stopped wanting to love him a long time ago.

Eventually Bruce nodded to himself, looking away. “I should get going,” he said, and Clark watched as he pulled the shell of Bruce Wayne around himself, a little slouch to his stance, a fake smile pasting itself to his face, and Clark didn’t do anything to stop him from leaving.

-----

Clark couldn’t say that he was surprised when Bruce came back to the Planet the next day. Surprise would suggest that he was capable of feeling something, but mostly, he was just … numb.

Lois had noticed his behavior, but he hadn’t been willing to explain. Talking about it would’ve made it real, and Clark hadn’t been ready for that. He still wasn’t.

He’d gotten so much practice shoving anything associated with Bruce off into a corner of his brain that he’d been able to avoid thinking about their conversation so far. He needed to, because when he did think about it, when the idea that Bruce loved him clawed its way to the forefront of his mind, had loved him even when he’d been tearing Clark apart, he just …

So he didn’t think about it, and he waited at his desk, absently working on something, who knew what, and idly wondered what else Bruce felt he had to say or do now to Clark and how he justified it to himself.

But Bruce spent over an hour locked up in Perry’s office and then left, and he never stopped to talk to Clark, although Clark did look up once to see Bruce watching him from across the room, his eyes dark and heavy, before Clark turned away.

He felt almost cheated when Bruce left, which was ridiculous and unfair, especially since he hadn’t even wanted to talk to Bruce in the first place, but it didn’t make it any less true. He wondered if it was just another Machiavellian move on Bruce’s part, and he was so tired. Just so tired of all of it.

He listened to the news that Bruce had rescinded his offer for the Planet in a haze.

“Apparently Mr. Wayne didn’t like being owner of a newspaper after all,” Perry told them, and there were a number of disparaging remarks about Bruce’s intelligence and attention span, or lack thereof, that Clark listened to with only half an ear, too absorbed in the realization that his friendship hadn’t been worth as much as he’d thought after all.

“I wonder how big the penalty’s going to be for backing out,” Lois said next to him, and Clark took a second to make sense of her statement before looking at her. “Do you think he guaranteed a whole percentage point for withdrawing? Which would be what, three, four million? It seems strange,” she said, her attention seemingly focused on Perry, “that Wayne wasted so much money to come here for a few days. He could’ve just passed the stewardship on to someone else and watched whatever profits roll in, but he deliberately pulled out. I wonder what he was thinking.”

Clark made a puzzled sound, but he didn’t really care about the answer. The only person who ever knew why Bruce Wayne did anything was Bruce Wayne himself, and Clark didn’t need any more reasons to spend time thinking about him. He could hardly think about anything else, no matter how much he tried not to.

Which, of course, meant that the next day a bouquet of flowers was delivered to his desk, the only thing on the card in the sender’s comments were the initials B.W., and Clark’s hand spasmed when he saw them.

It seemed like everyone and their dog came by to remark on the bouquet, which was understandable, considering it took up nearly a quarter of his desk. It was beautiful and ostentatious and filled with colorful flowers that Clark had never even seen before, and he kind of wanted to set it on fire. The only saving grace was that it’d been delivered directly to him, so he was able to hide the card and tell everyone he didn’t know who it was from.

That immediately got tongues wagging, but the teasing about a secret admirer was better than revealing who’d actually sent it, and Clark got a lot of practice that day ducking his head and blushing on command.

He dropped the bouquet off at Lois’ apartment on his way home, because the flowers were too lovely to go to waste, and he had to remind himself, several times, not to fly to Gotham and ask Bruce what he thought he was doing. He wasn’t ready to talk to Bruce yet, and confronting him when he was this hurt and confused and angry wasn’t going to do either of them any good.

It was hard, however, to keep to his resolve when he received a smaller, just as lovely but infinitely more sedate bouquet at his apartment on Saturday, no card attached. Clark found his eyes drifting to the flowers whenever he was home, their sweet fragrance filling the air.

He’d been half-tempted to refuse the delivery, not sure what accepting it meant, but not sure what rejecting it meant either. He wouldn’t put it past Bruce to know that Clark had given the previous bouquet away, and Clark wondered if Bruce had sent the second one as a replacement or if he intended to fill Clark’s apartment with flowers—not that he would let him, Clark thought, stroking his finger against a soft petal.

He caught himself wondering if Bruce had chosen the flowers themselves, or if he’d just told the florist to pick something nice, and Clark had to shake his thoughts free. Enough was enough, and he didn’t glance at the flowers again that night.

The next day, he received a small gift basket of loose-leaf teas and coffees, all carefully packaged. He didn’t open a single one, even though he recognized the coffee that Bruce had served him nearly a year ago when they’d been working late in the Bat Cave once. Clark had asked for the brand after taking one drink and nearly moaning in pleasure at the taste, and Bruce had shared the information, but Clark hadn’t been able to find anyone who sold it, not even online. At the time, he’d consoled himself that at least he’d get to drink it on the extremely rare occasion when he worked late with Bruce, but Bruce had never offered it to him again, and of course, Clark had never asked. But here it was now, and Clark didn’t know how to feel about the fact that Bruce had remembered.

Monday, it was a three course meal from a Spanish restaurant in Gotham that Clark liked. Clark debated with himself for five minutes before offering it to Lois.

“Thanks, but I’m meeting a contact for lunch at one,” she said, although that didn’t stop her from looking through the packages. “I’ll take this, though, if you really don’t want it,” she said, lifting the dessert and flashing him a smile, and he laughed and gestured for her to take it.

“Not hungry?” she asked as she pulled off the plastic lid, and Clark sighed. Lois knew he almost never turned down food.

“I brought my lunch,” he said, and her eyes flicked over to the address printed on the bag. He wondered how much Lois suspected.

Knowing her, probably a hell of a lot.

“Hmm,” she said, pointedly not asking who had sent him the food, before taking a bite. If the noise she made was any indication, it was delicious.

Clark glanced at the other two boxes and couldn’t resist taking a deep whiff. He loved paella.

“Well, I can always take it home, if you want, but you know how I feel about leftovers,” she said, and he did know; she tended to avoid them whenever possible.

“It’s fine. I’ll just …” He wasn’t going to give them to anyone else; he’d have to explain why he didn’t want them, and he didn’t want to lie or have people ask questions. “I’ll just eat it.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I can—”

“Nah, there’s no need to waste food,” he said and pulled the fork out of the plastic wrapper.

Tuesday was macarons. There were enough to share, which could’ve been considered thoughtful, if it weren’t for the fact that it made his coworkers talk. A lot of people had lunch delivered, so no one had really noticed, but this …

“Oooh, macarons! Who brought these in?”

“They’re Clark’s.” He could hear munching and appreciative hums. “They were delivered this morning.”

“Clark had these delivered for the office?”

“I’m pretty sure they weren’t for the office.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember the flowers he got last week?”

It was a disaster.

Wednesday was a box with five different fidget toys that Clark had only intended to pick up in order to see why people liked them so much, just to discover they were addictive and impossible to set down. Thursday was brownies. Sinfully-rich, obscenely delicious brownies. Clark might have eaten five.

He wanted to say that he’d eaten them spitefully and that Bruce’s strategy for softening his heart wasn’t working, but …

It kind of was. A little.

The presents thankfully weren’t too extravagant, although Clark didn’t want to think about what they’d all add up to given enough time, but they were a sign that Bruce thought about him. Every day. That Bruce wanted Clark to think about him as well—as if Clark had needed the prompting. It meant, though, that Bruce wasn’t hiding from him, or pretending it’d never happened, or acting like he wanted Clark to never mention it again, was, in fact, making it clear that he intended to pursue Clark, and the thing was … the thing was that Clark already knew that he was going to forgive Bruce.

They’d been friends for years, with Clark being in love with him for most of that time, and the longer he spent going over Bruce’s reasons for why he’d acted the way he had, the more of Clark’s anger drained away.

I might as well have been carrying the Kryptonite myself.

Clark had never met anyone half as aggravating or autocratic or downright idiotic as Bruce could be … but it always stemmed from good intentions, and Clark loved him. For better or for worse, he did.

Friday, Bruce came in himself.

“Mr. Wayne. What are you doing here?” Clark asked, calling up a polite smile since once again, they were the center of attention. At least it was lunchtime, so most of the office was deserted, but Clark knew that by the end of the day, the whole building would be talking about Bruce bypassing Perry’s office and coming directly to him. It was going to feed the secret admirer rumors to no end.

“I thought I might come by,” Bruce said, sounding at ease, but Clark could see the tightness around his eyes, “and take an old friend to lunch.”

Clark’s eyebrows went up, and he did a quick scan of the room to make sure no one was close enough to hear. “Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent aren’t friends,” he said, and he realized he was pointing out the obvious, but it sounded like Bruce was suggesting—

“They could be.”

He was.

“If you’d like,” Bruce said quietly, and while Clark understood that Bruce had to have thought about what he was offering, Clark didn’t know what to do with the fact he was actually offering it.

“People will talk,” he said, as if Bruce somehow wasn't aware of the possibility; Clark could hear them starting to talk already. “The almost sale, the presents, and here you are—”

“Clark,” Bruce said, his mouth tilting down, “when I first decided to purchase the Planet, it was with the idea of being able to see you without having to wait for circumstances to provide an excuse. Even as I was leaving last week, I had already decided on the reason I’d choose for coming back. For what, though? So I could trap you at work and force you to speak to me?” he said, his voice low but somehow unnaturally loud in Clark’s ears.

“Bruce, we don’t have to do this here,” he said around a suddenly dry throat, his eyes sweeping around the room once again. “We can go—”

“So I could act like I barely noticed you in public and then somehow convince you of my feelings during snatched moments of privacy?” Bruce continued, and Clark felt the rest of his sentence shrivel in his throat. “And what if someone found out? There’d be the shadow of harassment hanging over both of our heads. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Clark had to admit that for one crazy second after Bruce declared his feelings and after the news of the failed deal, he’d wondered if Bruce had backed out for his sake. But then he’d realized workplace professionalism only mattered in the context of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, and that wasn’t something he’d ever have to worry about.

Except somehow that wasn’t true anymore.

“And if by some miracle I succeeded, then what? I’d go back to being seen with a new trophy on my arm every other weekend in order to keep the rumors at bay? How could I ask you to go along with that?” Bruce’s lips thinned. “Maybe ten years ago, I would have. I’ve never claimed to be a good man, and maybe back then I would’ve been willing to sacrifice your feelings for my secrets,” he said, and Clark couldn’t look away from the darkness in Bruce’s eyes.

“Not now, though. Clark, I’m old enough that no one cares what I do, and even if they did,” Bruce said, stepping closer to Clark’s desk until his legs were pressing against the edge, “I nearly lost you. Let the whole world talk if they want to.”

“What are you saying, Bruce?” he asked, needing to hear the words explicitly, because he wasn’t sure he could believe it otherwise.

“I’m saying that I love you,” Bruce said in the middle of the newsroom, as if he said it all the time, as if it were something to be shared instead of kept hidden, “and I want to be with you. However you’ll let me.”

However Clark would let him? Bruce was implying he’d accept whatever crumbs Clark wanted to throw him as long as he could spend some part of his life with him, and Clark felt gutted, remembering all too clearly how that felt. “Bruce, I …”

“If you want me to stop sending the presents, then I will. I know you don’t like to be the center of attention, but I didn’t want you to think I didn’t mean every word I said. If you want me to leave, I’ll do that too, and we won’t ever have to talk about this again. But if you were willing to give me a chance,” he said, and Clark never wanted to see that fragile expression on Bruce’s face ever again, hated the idea that anyone would potentially witness how vulnerable he was.

He loved Bruce. And Bruce—

Bruce loved him too. Yes, Bruce had hurt him, but he’d done it in a misguided attempt to keep Clark safe, and there was no doubt that he regretted it. Wasn’t that enough? Did the rest of it really matter anymore?

“Clark, I—”

He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out a gravelly mess. “So lunch?” he suggested, wanting to leave, wanting to be alone with Bruce and knowing that Bruce would understand what he was saying.

Bruce went still, and he opened his mouth as if to reply … but then closed it, a dawning joy starting to spread across his face.

Clark knew his answering smile was a little wobbly, but that was alright, all things considered.

“Yes,” Bruce said huskily, the flash of relief on his face making it nearly impossible for Clark to keep his hands by his sides instead of reaching out to him. Bruce cleared his throat before saying, “I’ll even let you choose the restaurant, if you’d like,” his light tone not matching the warmth of his eyes.

-----

It was strange learning to be comfortable around each other again. There was an adjustment period of awkward conversations and longer than necessary silences, and Clark had to get over the feeling that he was doing something wrong every time he touched Bruce. The less said about their first kiss, the better.

Their second kiss, however … that was another story.

It didn’t help that their relationship was immediately thrust into the public eye. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the whole Planet sale/not-sale, but Clark couldn’t regret it. Sure, reporters followed them around on their dates, but he and Bruce were long past the getting to know each other stage, and they’d handled far more stressful situations, so it was a small inconvenience, all in all.

(At least they all didn’t react like Lois, who’d yelled, “I knew it! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner, you jerk!” and then punched him on the arm. But then she’d hugged him and told him good luck, so he supposed it hadn’t actually been all that bad.)

Far more momentous was the ability to call Bruce just because he wanted to, and he’d spent several minutes debating whether or not he should before biting the bullet the first time. It had turned out be the easiest part of everything, though, catching up on what they’d missed of each other’s lives and talking just to hear the other person reply. He’d known that he’d missed Bruce, but talking with him seemed to shake out the dusty cobwebs in the corners of his mind, made his day better and brighter, and he hadn’t realized how much Bruce could affect him with something as simple as a quick ‘how are you.’ What was even more amazing was that he wasn’t the only one. Bruce had never called him so frequently before, and Clark couldn’t help but smile every time he saw Bruce’s name on his screen.

It wasn’t necessarily fast, but it was steady progress, and Clark was fine with that. More than fine even. He’d been carrying around the weight of everything that had happened for so long that its absence was a little dizzying. He’d forgotten what it was like to be so happy, and it filled him with warmth in a way even the sun couldn’t hope to surpass.

So when he got injured almost almost two weeks into seeing Bruce, it was more than a little nerve-wracking, wondering if it was all going to come to an end.

It’d just been a small piece of Kryptonite.

But it had happened because Clark had seen something flying towards Bruce’s unprotected back and had gotten in front of it without thinking.

It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten hurt in the past five months, but it was the first time he’d been taken down for any period of time. And it was the first time since he and Bruce had gotten together.

At least it hadn’t been Luthor this time, just a previously unknown magic user that had the ability to enchant her arrows to injure anyone they touched. Luckily, since it’d been magic and not true Kryptonite, he’d healed as soon as it’d been pulled out, but the look on Bruce’s face would stay with him for a long time.

It was that look that had him going to Bruce’s quarters after he’d finished up his mandatory screen in medical. He didn’t want Bruce to have time to stew, for one thing, and for another, Clark didn’t believe in sitting back and waiting for trouble to come to him.

When it came down to it, he would always protect the people around him to the best of his ability. Even if it meant he suffered in the process. It was what he did, what Bruce did, and he realized there were some unresolved issues from their past, but he wouldn’t promise to step aside and let someone get hurt that he could’ve saved.

Especially not Bruce. That, he refused to do.

He knocked quietly on the door and was immediately let in.

Bruce had changed into slacks and a button-down shirt, and he was clearly waiting for Clark, because of course he’d known that Clark would come to find him.

“I’m alright, Bruce,” he said, like it wasn’t obvious, since he wouldn’t be there otherwise, but he still felt it needed to be said.

“I know that,” Bruce said shortly, but Clark felt himself relax a little, finding no traces of the anger he’d worried would be in Bruce’s voice. It wasn’t the same situation that they’d found themselves in months before, but it had mirrored it enough that Clark had wondered if—how—it’d impact them.

“Are you alright?” he asked, thinking about Bruce’s reaction, the shock in his voice as he’d called out to him, the fury in his next attack as he’d driven the enemy away from Clark.

Bruce ignored the question, rising from his chair and moving in front of him.

“Show me,” he said, and it took Clark a second to understand what he meant, because he hadn’t been expecting the request. Still, if that was what Bruce needed, then he was happy to do it. He unclasped the cape, setting on the back of a chair, and then undid his uniform. The material was stiff and tight enough that it was restrictive peeling back just a section, so Clark pulled the cloth down until it was around his elbows, leaving his shoulder bare for Bruce’s examination.

Hot fingers skimmed over his skin, coming to rest where the arrow had sunk in, not so much as a scar in its place.

Bruce let out a small exhale that told Clark he’d been more worried than he let on, and then he lowered his head and replaced his fingers with his mouth.

“Bruce,” he said, his breath hitching. “I really am fine.”

“Are you? Then show me,” Bruce demanded, his fingers deliberately curling around the back of Clark’s neck in order to draw him in, and ohhhh.

It was the first time they’d done anything further than heavy petting. Not that he hadn’t want to take things further, or that Bruce hadn’t, but there’d been a certain tentativeness to their relationship, as if they’d still been exploring the edges of where the hurt used to be, looking for hidden pitfalls.

Neither of them made any move to slow things down this time, however.

Kissing Bruce was different from before somehow. It had always felt good when they kissed. Right. But knowing that Bruce wasn’t going to push him away again, that Bruce accepted him and accepted what loving him entailed, it felt like rain after a ten-year drought, every inch of him sighing in relief, in hope, and Clark couldn’t kiss him long enough, hard enough, couldn’t keep his hands off him and didn’t even try.

They ended up backing against the wall and rutting against each other, his hands under Bruce’s thighs, holding him open and pinned as Clark grinded against him. Other than the top part of his uniform, they were both still clothed, too impatient to undress, but it still felt better than almost anything else ever had, surrounded as he was by Bruce’s arms and legs, driven crazy by the noises spilling from Bruce’s throat.

And then Bruce whispered against his mouth, “Don’t you want to fuck me?” as he rolled his hips, obscene and perfect, and it was a miracle Clark didn’t drop him as it felt like all of his higher brain functions ceased.

“Yes,” he gasped, but what he meant was anything, he’d do anything Bruce wanted. But it was distracting getting glimpses of more and more smooth skin with each freed button, feeling Bruce’s strong legs sliding against his own as he set him down, down, down, and before Clark knew it, he was on his knees, pressing wet, sucking kisses against Bruce’s stomach, his hipbones, nuzzling Bruce’s cock as Bruce shivered and curled his fingers in his hair.

It felt incredibly gratifying to take Bruce into his mouth, satisfying on some primal level, and Clark moaned, eyes fluttering shut so he could fully savor the sensation of Bruce filling him up.

“Shit. Clark,” Bruce said, his thighs tensing, fingers flexing in Clark’s hair, and Clark had to open his eyes then, unwilling to miss the furrow in Bruce’s brow or the way his lips parted helplessly as Clark swallowed around him.

Clark honestly intended to stop after a minute, but Bruce felt so good in his mouth, and he kept staring down at Clark, his face strained with the effort of holding back, and he whined when Clark finally pulled himself away … so what else was Clark supposed to do but suck on his balls at least once, twice, get his cheeks and chin wet with his own saliva as he licked Bruce cock all over?

He didn’t feel guilty exactly when Bruce groaned and started coming, his legs shaking like he would’ve fallen without Clark’s support, but Bruce rarely requested anything, and Clark didn’t want to give him any reason to be disappointed regarding their first time.

So he helped Bruce to the floor, the bed close but not close enough, and then he suckled gently on the tip of Bruce’s cock as Bruce shuddered all over, oversensitized and desperate underneath him. Clark didn’t have a refractory period, so he’d never feel the sensation of overstimulation, but he had to admit that it fascinated him to no end. He didn’t think he’d ever get over hearing Bruce make those punched-out groans or seeing Bruce lose his typical rigid control, and he found himself sucking more enthusiastically than he meant to, going faster before Bruce could handle it.

“Oh fuck, Clark, stop, fuck, stop!” Bruce gasped, his back arching off the floor and his knees squeezing Clark’s ears as he pushed at his shoulders, and Clark lifted his head, rubbing Bruce’s thighs soothingly and pressing apologetic kisses wherever he could.

“Do you really want me to stop?” he asked, looking through his eyelashes up Bruce’s body to his face, and Bruce groaned, letting his head fall back with a muted thump on the carpet, one leg flopping to the side.

“Just … give me a second,” Bruce panted, and Clark nodded, placing more soft kisses along newly exposed territory, his cheek brushing against Bruce’s testicles as Clark moved lower, and Bruce tensed, making a strangled noise in the back of his throat, before consciously relaxing, covering his eyes with the back of his wrist.

“Can I?” Clark asked, licking the crease between his thigh and groin, and Bruce just breathed, “Fuck,” in reply.

It was easy to get Bruce to roll over onto his stomach, and Clark spread Bruce’s cheeks apart, just looking for a moment at the perfect picture before him, Bruce tensing and relaxing by turns in anticipation, and Clark let out a shuddering breath before leaning in and starting to lick Bruce open.

He’d never heard Bruce sound like that before. It was … a revelation.

He didn’t know how long he spent eating Bruce out, too absorbed with the clench of Bruce’s body around his tongue and the noises that spilled like a benediction from Bruce’s throat, but Bruce was grinding back into his face by the end of it, moaning and making the occasional shocked grunt from how deep Clark could go, and Bruce’s cock was fully hard once more.

“Lube?” Clark asked, getting up on his knees and wiping at the excess saliva on his cheeks and chin. He could barely recognize his own voice with how wrecked it was.

“Nightstand,” Bruce slurred out, shifting one leg, and Clark found himself staring at the V of Bruce’s thighs, spread wide and glistening in the light. He’d be even wetter once they were finished, red and gaping open from Clark’s cock, and Clark wondered just how much Bruce could take, wondered how long Bruce would let him fuck him and how many times Clark could make him come before Bruce begged him to stop.

Clark shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. His whole life was an exercise in self-control, but sometimes, the temptation was beyond measure.

He started to get up and then paused. He wanted to carry Bruce to the bed, but he knew Bruce could be touchy about that kind of thing, and he didn’t want to ruin this by having Bruce tell him for the umpteenth time that just because he could do something, it didn’t mean he should. “Do you mind if I …?”

“Clark,” Bruce said, partially rolling onto his back and speaking in a voice so drenched with lust that Clark’s cock slapped against his stomach in response, “you can do anything you damn well want to me.”

It was a tease, a promise, as if Clark hadn’t already been on edge after watching Bruce come apart once, after tasting every part of him, after years of loving him and knowing—knowing—that he’d never have him. Hopefully, Clark could be excused his eagerness, laying Bruce on the bed and holding the lube in his hand before Bruce’s hair had even settled into place from the trip. If Bruce’s soft rumbling laughter were any indication, then he didn’t seem to mind, and Clark smiled back helplessly, leaning forward to kiss Bruce, because he’d never get over kissing Bruce now that he could, didn’t think even a lifetime of kisses would be enough.

It was Bruce who finally pulled away, rasping, “Fuck me,” against Clark’s lips, and he shuddered at the words, nearly fumbling the lube as he made to comply.

Clark pushed two fingers into Bruce straight away, knowing he’d already be a little stretched from earlier, and Bruce took them easily, his back arching off the bed as he groaned. Clark probably wasn’t as gentle as he could’ve been when he started stroking Bruce’s prostate considering it hadn’t been that long ago since Bruce had come, but there was just something about listening to the way Bruce sounded with that hint of too much in his voice that made Clark want to do it again and again.

“Damn it, get in me,” Bruce finally demanded, hands curling into fists in Clark’s hair as he fucked himself on Clark’s fingers, his hips rolling like he’d never had anything better, and Clark couldn’t hold back any longer. He shoved his uniform down to his knees and then slicked himself up.

Clark was embarrassed by how loudly he groaned when he slid into Bruce, but Bruce felt amazing, warm and tight, too tight maybe, since Clark was a lot bigger than two fingers, but Bruce didn’t complain, wrapped his legs around Clark’s thighs and pulled him in deeper instead.

“F-f-fuck!” Bruce gasped as Clark bottomed out, and he could feel Bruce clenching around him as he adjusted. Clark held himself still in the meantime, sucking and biting at Bruce’s jaw, his neck, leaving a trail of marks across his chest as he forced himself to wait.

“Fuck,” Bruce whispered again, blinking slowly as he finally relaxed.

“You okay?” Clark asked, breathing evenly, trying to think about anything other than how Bruce felt around him.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Once you start moving, I’ll be fucking fantastic,” Bruce told him somewhat acerbically, and Clark hid a smile before doing what they both wanted.

“You feel so good,” he told Bruce as he built up a rhythm, knowing he wouldn’t last, not when he’d been holding off for so long already, especially not when Bruce kept making more of those damn noises, when his body kept squeezing around him like he didn’t want to let go. “I can’t—how do you feel so damn good?” he gasped, and Bruce jerked against him, panting for breath.

The first time Clark came, it was with Bruce’s legs over Clark’s shoulders and his hand on Bruce’s cock, and Bruce shouted in surprise as Clark rode out the waves of his orgasm. It took Clark a moment to be able to concentrate enough to realize something was off about that and another moment to remember that his come tended to be slightly above average temperature. Not enough to hurt by any means, but it definitely marked him as different.

“Sorry,” he whispered, stopping completely. It had totally slipped his mind because his last partner had been Lois, and she’d been so used to it, that they hadn't even commented on it by the end. “I’m sorry.”

“Is it like that … every time?” Bruce asked, eyes a little wild, but he was still completely erect in Clark’s hand, which made Clark hopeful.

“Yes,” he said, wincing in guilt. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just—”

“It’s alright,” Bruce said, but his cock jumped in Clark’s grip, even though Clark wasn’t doing anything, and Clark glanced down in time to watch precome ooze from the tip.

“Bruce—”

“It’s fine, Clark,” Bruce snapped, and Clark could’ve sworn that Bruce’s face had gotten a shade redder, but considering what they were doing, he didn’t know if it was a direct correlation or not.

“Okay.” Clark decided he’d have to watch more closely next time, because all the evidence was pointing to Bruce liking how it felt when Clark came inside him, and didn’t that just make Clark a little crazy? He had to shake his head to clear his thoughts, and then he started moving again, picking up where he’d left off.

“What are you—?” Bruce gasped as Clark moved his thumb so it was rubbing against the slit of Bruce’s cock with every stroke. “Didn’t you just come?”

“No refractory period,” he said, lifting Bruce’s leg higher against his chest in order to change the angle, and he thrust a little harder. Now that his first orgasm was out of the way, it’d take much longer for him to come.

“Oh, fuck you.” Bruce’s fingernails dug into his thighs.

“Whenever you want,” Clark told him, and Bruce let out a little whine, his body tensing in a way that had Clark letting go of his cock, because he didn’t want to end things too fast.

“Clark—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you there,” Clark said, using both hands to pin Bruce’s legs next to his ears, and he didn’t think he’d ever been so happy by Bruce’s flexibility. The change in position made sure that Bruce couldn’t touch his own cock, but Clark tried to make up for it by hitting Bruce’s prostate on every stroke. It’d be a slower but more excruciating build-up, and it’d let Clark take his time.

Bruce cursed up until the very end, his fingers digging into Clark’s skin as he twisted and trembled, sweat dripping off his body as he struggled to come untouched, and Clark didn’t think he’d ever seen anything as gorgeous.

“I can’t,” Bruce said at one point, the words sounding like they’d been torn out of him, his chest heaving like he’d run a marathon. “Let me just—” he said, trying to reach around his leg to get to his cock, which was dripping all over his chest.

“I’ve got you,” Clark said, stopping him by pulling out and rolling Bruce onto his front. Besides, he didn’t want to hurt Bruce’s back by staying in that position too long. He pulled Bruce’s hips up and slid back inside as Bruce groaned thickly, and Clark thrust just a little bit harder, knowing Bruce could do it. “It’s going to feel so good when you come, Bruce. After all this time, it’s going to be so intense. You’re going to come everywhere, and I’m going to love watching you do it.”

Bruce let out what suspiciously sounded like a snarl, but he didn’t try to touch himself again, just got louder and louder until Clark began to worry about just how soundproofed the walls actually were considering he wasn’t the only one with super hearing. When Bruce finally orgasmed, shaking and clenching around him tight enough that Clark actually stopped moving for fear of hurting him, it was just as breathtaking as Clark had known it would be, the muscles in Bruce’s shoulders and back standing out in sharp relief, his head thrown back in pleasure. It made him regret not being able to see Bruce’s face, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that there’d be other times to look forward to, other chances to watch Bruce come undone, and once Bruce relaxed a little, Clark started moving again, milking Bruce through the rest of his orgasm until Bruce’s arms gave out and he panted out a weak, “Enough.”

Clark was close, so close, to his own orgasm, but he felt a little guilty for exhausting Bruce and for being so proud that Bruce had managed to come without a hand on his cock, so he grit his teeth and ignored it. He could always take care of it later, but Bruce needed him now.

Ignoring Bruce’s grumbling, he gently rearranged Bruce so he was out of the—very impressive—wet spot, and he flew to the bathroom and back, wiping Bruce with a washcloth that he carefully warmed with his heat vision. When Bruce was mostly clean, Clark lightly prodded Bruce onto his stomach and started rubbing his shoulders and back, intending to let him fall asleep like that.

After a while, though, Bruce said, “You didn’t come,” and Clark glanced from Bruce’s half-lidded eyes down at his erection, which hadn’t gone down noticeably.

“No, but that’s alright.”

“Get up here,” Bruce said, and there was no mistaking the command in his voice, no matter how hoarse he was, so Clark went.

Clark had thought Bruce was offering to finish him off with his hand or maybe letting Clark rub against him, but Bruce had other ideas.

“Aren’t you sore?” Clark asked, remembering how red and swollen Bruce’s hole had looked when Clark had pulled out, and he ignored the way his cock twitched at the memory.

“Just don’t go too fast,” Bruce said, sitting up slowly.

“But we can do something else—”

“I want to feel you come in me again,” Bruce said, staring him down with a hungry expression, and if so much time hadn’t passed, Clark might’ve lost it just from that.

Bruce’s third and Clark’s second orgasm was with Bruce lax on Clark’s lap, back to front, Clark whispering, “Relax, just let me take care of you,” as he ground into him. Knowing Bruce’s cock was too sensitive, he fondled Bruce’s balls instead as he rolled his hips upwards and pinched Bruce’s nipples, making him squeeze down on his cock each and every time, until Clark came, his head spinning as he lost himself in the feel of Bruce surrounding him.

“Clark,” Bruce gasped when Clark finally reached for his cock as he filled him up again, and he followed Clark over with a hitching moan.

Bruce hissed when he lifted himself off of Clark, dripping and sore, and Clark was tempted to spread him out, to soothe the ache with his tongue, but he kept the idea firmly to himself. Maybe when Bruce was more accustomed to coming multiple times in succession …

For now, however, Clark was happy with taking a shower with Bruce while they exchanged lazy, sloppy kisses, and after Clark changed the sheets while Bruce was drying off, they lay in bed together, Bruce against his back, and there in the dark, Bruce said softly, “I love you, Clark.”

It was only the second time that Bruce had said the words, and it made Clark’s heart feel full to bursting, a sweet kind of pain he never wanted to stop.

Clark turned around so they were facing each other, and perhaps it was cheating that he could see so much better in the dark than Bruce, but considering who he was with, maybe not. “I love you too,” he said hoarsely, reaching out to stroke Bruce’s cheek with his thumb. It was the first time for him, the first time he’d felt like he could without his fears holding him back.

Bruce swallowed but didn’t say anything else, just grabbed Clark’s hand in order to press a kiss to his palm before folding his arms around him.