Archive of Our Own ^beta

Clark Kent is fine. He is 100% fine, a-okay, he is fine.

There is nothing wrong with him, he knows himself and he is secure in his life. He’s fine.

(There’s an urge though, to white knuckle kryptonite until it hurts so bad, until he loses consciousness because Clark probably wasn’t fine, although he’d appreciate some understanding regarding the sentiment because it’s the third dictator Superman to emerge from the multiverse in a very short time span. There’s an ungodly concoction of emotions in his chest and the only emotion Clark’s willing to identify is frustration.)

The other him - the evil one as Barry puts it - is gone quickly enough thanks to Zatara working her magic and Clark is very grateful and he hopes he made that clear.

The evil dictator wearing the House of El crest has been gone for two days at this point and Clark can’t get it out of his head - or the other two that came before him.

They were him. Either still, or previously. They had his face, his crest, and even his life up until a certain point. Clark wants to laugh at it in some way, feeling like he’s in some horror movie, and feeling inexplicably tied to his other counterparts.

Clark wants to know why they’re all coming through, and everything feels so sudden and violent, and maybe it isn’t, maybe Clark’s just very good at ignoring the signs of something being wrong.

Oddly enough, the evil versions of himself make him nostalgic, and he thinks about how his powers started coming in, how he started to realise that he wasn’t as normal as he thought he was (as he wanted to be).

It was this odd act of levitation first, against his will and it was horrifying, because even though it didn’t hurt and he was okay, Clark didn’t know what was happening and it was scary.

He didn’t think any of the other kids had to worry about hovering over the cornfields in the middle of the night. He wasn’t normal, there was something severely wrong with him and there was no going back from that.

Ma tried to catch him, pull him down, but whatever invisible force that is forcing him into the air is far too powerful and there is no fight to be had. Clark keeps ascending and his Ma is dragged along with him. Either Clark kept squirming too much, or their grips weren’t strong enough on each other, but Ma fell.

She was fine, she got back up again, but her ribs fractured (Clark heard it) and Clark overheard her talking to Pa about the nasty bruising.

Before that though, Clark eventually gets down, and he’d never been so relieved to be in the cornfields in all his life. Ma went to get some ice for her side. Clark cried, face buried in his forearms at a kitchen table in Smallville, Kansas. From that table he demanded what felt like secrets of the universe, secrets that made him so much different to everyone else, he wanted answers.

Ma and Pa wanted answers too. They don’t have any answers.

Clark never seems to have answers these days. He supposes the nostalgia, the reminiscing, comes from wanting answers. Why do so many versions of himself seem to be so fucked up?

Maybe it’s stupid to still be thinking about them, or, maybe it’d be good, to try and understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. Clark snorts. Maybe he’s spending too much time with Bruce, trying to get into his enemies head. Although, Clark supposes, it shouldn’t be difficult given they are just him, aren’t they?

He groans and drags a hand down his face, and it feels entirely too human. He pauses after doing it, and a hollowness has bloomed in his chest and Clark swallows.

He was supposed to be working on article - Metropolis’ plans to introduce better regulation amongst imported goods, which was of course a companion to the expose regarding the importation of about two tons of Kryptonite, courtesy of Lois.

The laptop screen glares at him and Clark is sure that he’s glaring right back at it.

He turns it off, closes it and goes to bed.

Metropolis is cold, supposedly, this time of year. Clark can’t feel it and yet he bundles up anyway, a knitted scarf made up of red and black squares, gifted to him by Ma. He likes the texture, anyway. He tucks his hands into his pockets, and ducks into the crowded streets.

He wonders how many people the other Supermen killed in their quest for control and power, and when he shudders it has nothing to do with the cold.

(He wonders if some of the faces he’s looking at now are dead in other universes, gone, taken forever. He looks at the ground.)

He has Watchtower duty, with Bruce. It’s been a week.

Clark’s barely done anything all week - nothing new from the usual routine at least - and yet he feels impossibly run down and he doesn’t know why.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asks, and there’s that Batman quality to his voice of course, but the question comes out both blunt and unsure, like Bruce had wanted to know but hadn’t known how to ask.

They’ve been dating for over a year now.

Clark wants to laugh but something clogs his throat. He looks at Bruce out of the corner of his eye and returns back to writing up his report for the most recent Metropolis disaster.

“I’m fine,” he says, “why do you ask?”

He can hear how Bruce shifts in his seat, the components of his suit, the kevlar, the fabric, spandex, and the cape all sliding over one another. Bruce pauses, even as Clark can hear Bruce’s tongue moving around in his mouth. He wants to say something.

“You seem off,” Bruce says, and Clark does snort at that because Bruce does have a knack at being hilariously blunt about his words. It’s usually endearing, and, if Clark’s being honest, it still is.

“I’m fine,” Clark repeats, and he smiles, looking at Bruce, and white lenses framed by the black of his cowl stare at him. “You know how it is.”

Although Clark isn’t sure if Bruce knows how it is, mostly because Clark isn’t even sure what it is at this point.

Bruce grunts, and Clark is almost desperate with the need to ask him what he understood from Clark’s sentence. Maybe it’s about their work. Clark wishes it were that easy.

They wrap up their shift together, swapping out for Hal and Oliver.

He and Bruce walk side by side, and Bruce makes their shoulders brush and something warm flutters in Clark’s chest. He exhales, perhaps more forcefully than he intended to.

“Come by the Manor,” Bruce murmurs, low and Clark has to remind himself to keep walking. There’s an lilt to Bruce’s words, as though it’s a question. Clark knows it isn’t. He nods, and Bruce stalks ahead disappearing around a corner.

He goes in through the cave, and he finds Bruce down there, working at the Batcomputer.

Bruce looks at Clark, both of them still in uniform even though Bruce is missing the cowl, anc his face is neutral, calm, and he inclines his head, nodding toward the back of cave and he resumes typing.

Clark finds a nice pair of spare clothes that he had left at one point or other and they’ve been washed with care, the detergent gentle on Clark’s senses. He changes efficiently and folds his suit up and uses it to replace the clothes laid out for him.

Bruce has finished his work for the evening, and Clark places a hand on the back of Bruce’s chair, and he reads some of the stuff spread out over the different screens; missing persons cases, shipments that were intercepted before delivery, and other odd occurrences that seem to have made flags in Bruce’s system.

Bruce pushes his chair out and Clark moves his hand, albeit, not far when Bruce’s hand wraps around his wrist.

The look in Bruce’s eyes is interrogating but that isn’t to say it’s cold.

“I want to talk to you,” Bruce says and promptly leaves to go change out of his suit.

“We always talk to each other,” Clark says, and he can practically hear Bruce’s scowl and Clark smiles at Bruce’s retreating form, before busying himself and looking over the files that Bruce was looking at, assuming that was why the older man had left them open to begin with.

When Bruce comes back, his hair is damp and Clark appreciates the way the soft black tee he’s wearing hugs his shoulders. Bruce’s head tilts towards the staircase and Clark follows along, and he feels a bit like a dog following obediently on Bruce’s heels as the older man leads him to his study.

There’s an armchair, fluffed up with pillows, and Clark sinks into it, while Bruce moves to the couch. The couch is almost equally fluffy with pillows, and it’s adjacent to the armchair, the back of the couch against the wall of Bruce’s study, and the armchair angled toward it.

“You wanted to talk?” Clark asks, although the inquisitive tone to his voice is more accidents than intentional.

Bruce tilts his head to the side and he swallows, looking thoughtful for a long moment, long enough that something uneasy rolls through Clark’s gut. He’s almost tempted to ask if Bruce is breaking up with him, and he has to smother the awkward laughter that readily bubbles up in his throat.

“I,” Bruce starts and then closes his mouth, and a pinch forms between his brows and Clark resists the urge to touch him. “I don’t know how to say it nicely,” Bruce says, and Clark swears his heart does physically jump into his throat, and when he swallows he’s sure his pulse is visible under his skin. He has to actively fight digging his fingers into the arms of the chair and shredding the fabric.

“You’ve been in your head a lot lately,” Bruce says.

Clark frowns, brows knitting together. “What?” It feels like there’s a lump building in his throat that sticks, and swallowing just reminds him it’s there. He gives it a moment and it goes on it’s own.

Bruce sighs, and he looks at Clark, almost carefully. “You’ve been out of it, and I just.” Bruce isn’t quite frustrated but his eyes have a steely glint. “I wanted to try something and see if it might help you feel better.”

Clark didn’t realise he’d been out of it. Clark gives a measured exhale. “What did you have in mind?”

Bruce licks his lips. “Some people find BDSM a useful way to help get out of their heads.”

It makes Clark feel a bit like a wild animal, unruly and untamed, the tone Bruce uses, careful, calm and measured. Of course, he understands, that Bruce didn’t intend for it to come of that way, Clark knows that what Bruce is suggesting is fairly heavy given their normal sex life.

Clark bites his lower lip. “Did you have anything specific in mind?” Clark asks softly.

Bruce looks away briefly. “I can show you? It’s only a few things.”

In Bruce’s bedroom, he pulls out a box, and when he removes the lid it exposes different things. Clark is momentarily confused, stunned even, and there’s a split second where he doesn’t really know what he’s looking at. He can make a few things out, after a while; whips, clamps, a few vibrators, a flogger, what looks like a blindfold, and even a few scalpels.

Bruce clears his throat, “It isn’t all of it, but it’s what you could call some of my most favourite toys.”

Clark isn’t sure at all what to say. Thank you for showing me? Where do you want to start? I don’t know what I’m doing, even?

“Thank you,” he settles on, and he looks at Bruce, their eyes locking before he looks back at the assortment in front of him. “For sharing this with me.”

It feels like their first time all over again, that almost-awkward fumbling they shared, and in a way, Clark supposes it is. It is going to be the first time with BDSM, and Clark supposes it’s no different to losing your virginity.

They sit on the bed, and Bruce walks him through a few things, and it becomes clear that Bruce has so much experience, more than Clark even seems to be able to comprehend.

“People often default to the stop light system, the standard green, orange and red, but they also like to have a specific set of words, specific to the couple playing,” Bruce says, thumb stroking over the back of Clark’s hand. “People don’t even necessarily have to have the same one, even if they play together. For example, if I used your full name that could be a way to signal stop, but you might not want to use your full name during the play time.”

“I see,” Clark says, and he does, but he also feels so far out of his depths.

“Do any words come to mind? You can just use the stop light system, but you can use specific ones if you prefer to.”

Clark worries at his lower lip, but after a moment he shakes his head, and Bruce nods.

“Negotiation is mandatory, as is aftercare,” Bruce says. “If we are going to do a scene then I am going to have to explicitly go through the big details with you, as well as the role you might want to have.”

Clark nods and inhales, breath feeling shaky. Bruce squeezes his hand.

“I’m normally inclined to be a dom in a scene and I know you prefer me topping anyway, but if you’d like, we could negotiate a scene with you as a dom.”

“No,” Clark shakes his head, “I think I’d prefer to sub.”

“Your answer doesn’t have to be set in stone,” Bruce says, and Clark nods. “But before everytime we play I do want to be clear on what both of us expect from it beforehand, and I will always require verbal confirmation, before, during and after unless you are impaired in a way that we have both agreed on. Am I clear?”

“Yes,” Clark says.

They don’t play that night, Bruce says he’s too tired for anything like that, and that he wants to give Clark the opportunity to do his own research on the topic.

They do fuck, Clark on his back, legs spreads to accommodate Bruce’s hips, and the older man holds himself up with hands either side of Clark’s head. He fucks in steadily, Clark’s cunt slick and wet around him, and Clark’s mndful, but he does let his nails dig into the nape fo Bruce’s neck. The older man just hisses slightly, but Clark can see the gleam in his eye and feel the way his cock twitches inside.

It’s more rutting than fucking, both of them too desperate to hold back. Clark reaches down to rub at his cock, wet and slick and so good and his body tenses up, muscles tightening and he has to clench his eyes shut as the white hot pleasure threatens to annihilate him so very thoroughly and -

He’s suddenly overwhelmed with the face of his counterpart the dictator, and it’s not quite right because he’s covered in blood and Clark can’t ever remember that and then there’s a crumpled up body at his feet and there’s too much blood, it’s everywhere, oh god, -

Clark gasps and Bruce fucks in once, twice, before he’s coming himself, and Clark feels nauseous with it.

He showers and he feels unclean.

(He ignores it, it was just a blip, it doesn’t mean anything, Clark is fine, he is. He was just vulnerable and got a shock, his mind playing silly tricks on him and he certainly wouldn’t be the first person that it’s happened to. He’ll be fine, he is fine, he’ll forget about it soon enough, with all the hectic things that invade their life.

There’s a lump in his throat.)

He’s always known Bruce was into BDSM. It was one of the things that Bruce communicated to Clark early enough, that he and his tastes weren’t consistently vanilla. Not that it would have been a dealbreaker, moreso that Bruce was into that, and if Clark might ever want to explore that with Bruce, it was definitely an option.

Clark doesn’t exactly know where to start. Googling ’BDSM basics’ only gets you so far he finds, but it is useful. He knows the basics - the bare basics at least. Terminology, and that’s always a good starting point for Clark.

Although, as he reads through the list he wrinkles his nose at Golden Showers and decides that that will probably never be on his to do list. Clark supposes that might be a hard limit.

Clark likes the sound of certain things, restraints, bondage and discipline and of course, subbing for Bruce. There are a lot of things that he’s really intent on staying away from and he compiles a small list ready for the next time Bruce and he talk about it.

Bruce smiles at him, pleased and something hot curls in Clark’s gut. Bruce reads the list, holding it in one hand whilst the other hand slides up Clark’s back where it cups the back of Clark’s neck, squeezing and Clark seems to bleed tension.

“Those are all understandable,” and Bruce frowns briefly in thought, “and I’m not really into those things anyway.”

Clark nods.

“For this scene I wanted to test a few things, floggers, whips, a few vibrators and see how well you react to them, if that’s okay.”

Clark nods again and then Bruce raises an expectant eyebrow and he flushes. “But I don’t feel pain.”

Bruce makes a thoughtful noise. “Pain isn’t a necessary part of BDSM, it’s a part but not essential,” Bruce says, “some submissives only want to be good and get pleasure and they don’t like the pain. I don’t care about whether you can feel the pain, I care about whether you like it or not.”

Clark nods.

Bruce nods himself. “In past scenes with others, I’ve usually had submissives address me by a title, depending on the sub, but in this case you can just call me Bruce as you would normally do, unless of course you want to try out any titles?”

Face warm, Clark shakes his head, “I don’t know, for now I think not.”

Bruce hums and squeezes Clark’s nape, before sliding his hand down Clark’s back and pulling the hand away altogether.

“I’d like for you to strip down to your underwear if you don’t mind.”

Clark inhales and strips down, shirt, and then pants and then socks.

He’s wearing boxer briefs and his lack of a traditional cock wasn’t leaving a physical impression of his arousal, although he’s sure his growing wetness will be sure to ruin them.

He stands and it’s perhaps a bit awkward, and in an attempt to avoid restless shifting he puts his arms behind his back, holding his wrist in one hand. Bruce looks over at him with an appraising eye, and even though he’s only just risen from his perch on the bed, Clark feels very much like an animal being circled. He resists the urge to curl in on himself.

Bruce hums. Clark’s chest heaves with his inhales and it feels shaky.

“On the bed, on your back, and hands above you on the headboard,” Bruce says, turning and looking through the toy box.

Clark relaxes ever so slightly, no longer under Bruce’s scrutiny. Bruce is always intense, either deliberately or unintentionally so. This is a new facet to Bruce in a way, not entirely but a different enough perspective, and it makes Clark want to be good and prove himself and yet, he’s not entirely sure he likes this feeling.

He gets on the bed, on his back and neck supported by the plush mountain of pillows, and he stretches his arms above his head, elbows bent and palms flat against the headboard. His legs are pressed together and Clark feels unsure of what to do with himself.

Bruce turns back to him, one hand wrapped around the handle of a flogger, and the other hand coming to almost comb through the thin strips of leather. Clark shifts his hips, side to side, almost restlessly.

“Good,” Bruce says, voice low, and Clark’s skin prickles as his breathing hitches.

Bruce holds the flogger above Clark’s abdomen, the tips not quite touching his abdomen. He lowers it, the tips ghosting over Clark’s skin, and Clark shivers as it tickles him.

The older man’s eyes are dark, sharp electric blue and they never leave Clark, although they rove over his form, and despite Bruce having not even laid a hand on him he feels consumed. Bruce trails the flogger up and down Clark’s torso, from his navel to his collarbone and Clark shivers.

Clark wonders if he’s supposed to be aroused yet. It just feels ticklish.

Bruce lifts the flogger away from his skin, and then brings it back down over Clark’s belly in a sharp flick of his wrist.

It’s not painful, and Clark wonders if it would hurt even on a human. It’s almost like pinpricks of pressure against Clark’s skin. It’s interesting, and Clark thinks that in a weird way, he likes the feeling of pressure. But, he’s not particularly interested in it, it doesn’t ignite any interest or arousal in him, the act of Bruce bringing the flogger down on him.

Bruce does it again, and Clark can feel the way he uses more force. It still doesn’t particularly interest Clark.

He shivers though, almost despite the plainness of the action, and Bruce makes a noise, a low hum in the back of his throat.

Pulling away, Bruce turns, drops the flogger onto the bedside table and then gets something else from the toy box.

It looks like a riding crop, all in black, with a black leather handle, long slim flexible neck and wide flat head of folded leather - at least, that’s what Clark assumes, he’s only seen a few of them in his research which was still tentative.

Bruce swats at the palm of his hand and uses the head of the riding crop to trail over the skin of Clark’s inner thighs.

He’s much quicker to use it to strike Clark’s thighs, quickly, swatting Clark’s inner thigh thrice in quick succession. It doesn’t particularly feel like much, fleeting pressure and leaving Clark’s skin feeling strangely bare in its absence.

He squirms, unsure whether it’s due to the unwavering look in Bruce’s eye or the slight tingle that the brief pleasure left against his skin.

Bruce swallows and Clark watches him, as the older man thinks over it all thoughtfully.

“How did that feel?” Bruce asks.

Clark thinks for a moment. He resists the urge to shrug his shoulders. “I didn’t really feel it, I guess,” he says, sounding a little bit unsure of himself, but it’s the truth.

“What did you feel?”

“Pressure,” Clark answers, and flushes at the way his voice cracks, “which I liked but the actual whip and crop didn’t really do it for me.”

Bruce hums, and also puts the riding crop onto the dresser and once again rummages through the toy box and this time takes two things out of it. A pair of handcuffs are hanging from the crook of Bruce’s index finger on one hand and on the other is something that Clark can’t quite make out, beyond the fact that it doesn’t look particularly big.

“May I have your wrists?” Bruce asks and the hidden object disappears out of Clark’s line of sight entirely, Bruce now using both hands to present the handcuffs. They’re simple enough, the traditional silver metal that most expect when they hear the word.

Clark moves his hands from the headboard and offers them up to Bruce. The older man kneels partially on the bed, securing the cuffs around one wrist and then the other.

Clark knows he could easily rip right through them. He pulls gently, hands moving in opposite directions, just to feel the metal digging in ever so slightly.

Bruce’s lips curl into the faintest hint of a smile. “Hands above your head again, please.”

Clark follows Bruce’s command quickly.

“Good,” and something curls in Clark’s gut, warm and pleased.

Bruce spreads Clark’s legs, kneeling between them and the second thing he got out of the toy box is again concealed in his hand.

“Can you tell me your safewords?” Bruce hands, one hand stroking Clark’s inner thigh absently.

“Yellow for pause, red for stop,” Clark says. Bruce pats his thigh.

“If you don’t like this, let me know,” Bruce says, before he hooks his fingers into the waistband of Clark’s underwear and pulling them down, Clark shifting accordingly.

Bruce’s fingers ghost over the seam of Clark’s cunt and the anticipation in and of itself has Clark’s toes curling. It’s not particularly new territory though, not even when Bruce uses his index and middle finger to spread his folds and Clark squirms under the scrutiny.

Bruce doesn’t use his other hand to slide fingers into him, like he usually does, despite the way that Clark’s starting to get wet enough that Bruce could probably just slide in.

Something presses against his cock, and his body jerks, and he has to calm his breathing from the shock. Bruce is watching him. Whatever it is, it’s smooth and sleek and feels a bit like plastic.

It seems to have a rounded tip, and Bruce uses it to rub up and down the length of Clark’s cock, a barely there pressure against the head of the nub and Clark gasps, squirming. And then Bruce turns it on and Clark cries out. The vibrations are powerful for such a small thing, and the rounded tip focuses them acutely on the head of his cock.

His hands jerk, and he manages to stop himself from snapping the restraint entirely, the metal digging in, and whilst Clark enjoys the constant pressure he wonders what it’d be like if the cuffs could bite into his skin.

Bruce makes an amused sound.

Clark’s back arches, hips and shoulders and head pushing into the plush mattress, and Clark is fighting a losing battle as he fights to not move - he’s struggling to remember what Bruce even instructed him to. Either way, delicious heat curls in his gut, coiling and wrapping around his nerves, enveloping them in a chokehold, and Clark thinks that the only way to escape might be to come and isn’t that a delicious thought.

“Bruce,” he says, and cries out, cunt clenching around nothing, and Bruce hums, the vibrator circling his cock in tight circles and Clark’s hands curl into fists, desperately trying to hold on.

“Bruce, I want to,” Clark moans, Bruce touching his cock with the vibrator and Clark struggles to get out his words.

“Do you want to come?” Bruce asks, voice low, and Clark moans, squirming and nodding.

“Please, please, I need to,” he begs.

Bruce murmurs, low and clear, “Come, come for me.”

Clark’s body goes taut, and he feels both tense and like he’s melting into the mattress.

Bruce wipes him down, unlocks the cuffs, and sets aside all the toys to be cleaned.

Bruce offers him a snack, and water which Clark takes eagerly. Bruce, after flitting around, taking only about a minute to make sure nothing was amiss, gets into bed and cuddles into Clark’s side, and after a moment, Bruce strips off his shirt, and Clark’s grateful for the skin-to-skin contact and he presses them closer, arms behind Bruce’s neck, burying his face into the hollow of his neck.

“You did so good,” Bruce says, and Clark hums.

He’s read that subspace feels like something, like your deep, or low or high - it feels different, to how you normally feel anyways. Clark doesn’t feel any of that, he just feels nice after having a really good orgasm.

“Did you like it?” Bruce asks, after a while.

Clark wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know. The pressure was nice, if that makes sense, and the orgasm and vibrator was nice too, but I couldn’t feel any of the pain, so other than that it wasn’t doing too much for me.”

Bruce nods along and hums. “That’s okay, it’s not for everyone.”

“I mean, you have more stuff, don’t you?” Clark asks.

“BDSM is a very broad spectrum, it includes a lot of things,” Bruce says, “does this mean you might want to try more in the future?”

“Yeah, I think I do, at least, the experience I suppose,” Clark says.

Bruce kisses his shoulder. “We’ll always discuss beforehand and have safe words available.”

Clark scratches at Bruce’s scalp, and softly says, “Okay.”

It’s not particularly surprising that something comes through the multiverse, but it is surprising that three things have come through.

Lord Superman, as he so elegantly introduces himself, wears a uniform not to dissimilar Clark’s own, although this one is black and white with an accent of red. Lord Batman follows close behind and they both look almost stunned to be there - god only knows why they keep getting churned out, thrown in their path at any given opportunity.

The third is a Wonder Woman, albeit, not one connected to Lord Superman or Batman, even if she is as blood thirsty, with buckets to spare.

It would seem that the Lords were caught in the middle of something, blood splattered up the front of Lord Superman’s suit, fist bloody.

Clark struggles to breathe for a moment, something heavy and thick welling up in his chest and he momentarily feels like his entire body is moments away from collapsing.

The Batman from the other universe barely looks horrified, only resigned, as if he’s seen this sight a million times before. If Clark’s learnt anything from the twisted versions of himself it’s that it’s probably true.

Lord Superman sounds like him, talks like him, and Clark wonders if they are even distinguishable up to a certain point.

Wonder Woman brandishes her sword, the metal glinting in the light, and for a moment Clark isn’t sure whether she’s going to attempt to fight them or whether she’s going to try to fight the Lords. It isn’t particularly clear in which direction this Diana’s blood thirst leans.

They’re gone soon enough, forced back into their own timeline.

Clark beams at everyone and thanks Zatanna for her help in closing it down, and that’s that.

Alfred had prepared him breakfast that morning, and Clark had eaten the entire plate. Clark heaves and vomits over a toilet, and the food comes up and god, Clark finds himself gagging at the textures, the feeling of food dragging over his tongue and it burns. Clark’s eyes water and he heaves over the toilet bowl.

Even after all that, it feels like something is still stuck in his throat.

Barry says Diana must’ve been happy to finally be represented by insane bloodthirsty dictators, and their Diana had laughed.

He’s not like Bruce.

Everything about Bruce is careful - the way he talks, the way he walks, his fights, his image, all so careful, so careful, as though he’d shake the world with anything he did and Clark sometimes wants to snap what do you know about being a danger to the world -

And yet.

Clark made sure to allow everything to pass, words and the world. If he didn’t, he’d be more susceptible to the influence of others - Clark Kent and Superman are nobodies warriors or soldiers.

The world bends under Bruce Wayne’s words, under the everything of Batman, and he understands influence and the power of words. He has power and people don’t let that pass, carrying the weight of Bruce’s power in his words, his skills, and so bend to his will.

More often than not, Clark’s in awe of it. The almost effortless nature of it, the way Bruce can almost just roll his shoulders, and straighten his posture and then have everything curl into him. Clark doesn’t think it’s easy by any means. But Bruce makes it look like how Arthur makes gliding through water look; how Barry and Wally make running on water look; how Diana makes her swordsmanship look like she’s using cutlery; how Victor effortlessly understands technology and processes it all; and Hal’s ability to create just about anything he knows.

It’s almost like a meta thing. Bruce would probably laugh if Clark said as much. Clark knows it’s not easy, and that makes it all the more impressive.

Clark’s just bitter, he supposes.

“Humour me?” Clark asks, straddling Bruce in bed, the other man reading a book about dead languages, Latin and its applications, if Clark remembers right.

Bruce looks at him from over the top of the book, and Clark only needs to look at the way his eyes crinkle to know he’s smiling. It’s good because Clark doesn’t currently feel like using x-ray vision.

Bruce shifts so he’s holding the book with one hand, and the other slides up Clark’s bare thigh. “Go on,” he says, looking back at his book. Still, his thumb moves back and forth in Clark’s inner thigh, and Clark knows he’s listening.

Now or never he supposes. “Could we maybe bring Kryptonite into the bedroom?”

The room goes still. Bruce stops moving, and Clark would swear for a moment - if he couldn’t literally hear otherwise - that Bruce's heart also stopped too.

He feels a bit like hurling again. Bruce looks up at him, carefully.

He knows it’s a thing - green kryptonite can be controlled enough, just so, so that yes it hurts but mostly it would just keep Clark at a baseline human level. That’s not even considering other variants like blue that do the same, minus the pain.

Bruce puts his book down on the dresser next to them, and then both his hands are on Clark’s thighs.

Despite the unease rolling in his gut, there is no particular reason for it. There is no judgement in Bruce’s face, face clear and if anything he only seems curious, and yet, Clark is reminded of the many times that Bruce has proven himself to be a good actor. He swallows, and Bruce’s eyes follow the bobbing of his throat.

“Are you sure about this?” Bruce asks, voice soft. “Keep in mind, your answer can change and we can talk about this more.”

“It was just an idea,” Clark says, and he isn’t sure whether he means it or not.

Bruce nods, and the room regains its sense of life. Clark breathes.

They kiss, mouths meeting softly and yet there is a near palpable hunger in how they kiss, Clark’s hands keep Bruce close, one hand at the nape of his neck, the other at his back, whilst Bruce hands splay over his back, fingers outstretched and showing his wide handspan. They don’t do any more than that, because they pull away because Bruce needs to breathe, and then, despite Bruce's hands wandering into his pants, the older man’s jaw makes a cracking sound as he yawns. He looks surprised by himself and Clark snorts.

“Maybe we should call it a night,” he says, voice wry, and Bruce grunts, swatting at his ass, and Clark laughs, flopping on the bed next to Bruce. He wriggles trying to get comfortable, and when he’s settled, Bruce’s breathing has already evened out.

They don’t really talk about it again, but Clark doesn’t stop thinking about it.

He supposes he hasn’t stopped thinking about Kryptonite for a while. (He thinks he wants it to hurt and from what he understands, the hurt is sometimes the point of BDSM, the punishment for doing something bad, for being bad.)

The cave is always cool. “I did something,” Bruce says, not unlike how a cat would if they could take pride in the recent thing they pushed off. Clark’s heart flutters with something like fondness and he resists the urge to kiss Bruce.

“What did you do?” He’s careful not to make it sound accusatory.

Bruce looks somewhat cautious, which is both normal and not. Clark doesn’t know the context.

“I know we were supposed to have a more detailed talk but I got a bit carried away,” Bruce says, and Clark’s gut rolls.

He blinks, and Bruce continues. He fiddles around with a locked box. He unlocks it, and pulls something out of the box. Clark becomes unsure over whether they’re even having the same conversation than the one he thinks they’re having. There’s no otherworldly nausea that he often associated with Kryptonite.

Bruce holds up a leather strip. It’s plain black, neither too thin nor thick and it’s unassuming. But Bruce said he had done something.

Clark looks between the leather strip and Bruce’s face.

Bruce flips the leather over and the back of the strip has a few thin shards of blue crystals that seem to be both embedded in the leather and covered with a thin plastic layer. “I didn’t know if you’d want a fancy collar, or even a collar at all, but,” Bruce looks away then, lips pressed together as he fumbles for the words.

Clark closes the small distance between them and feels the slight pressure induced by the blue Kryptonite.

“Blue and not green?” he asks, because there’s not much else to ask. (Have you thought about it? About keeping my powerless? Did you want to keep me under control? Were you worried about it hurting?) He swallows and there’s something thick and unrelenting pressing up against the back of his throat.

“I know that you want to explore the pain aspects of BDSM but, I didn’t want that pain to be because of Kryptonite. I supposed I wanted to talk about keeping you focused,” Bruce says, all very matter-of-factly.

Something bubbles up in Clark’s chest. “Oh, thank you.”

Bruce puts the collar back into the box, and after a glance Clark confirms that it’s lead lined.

The box rests on the bedside table, and it feels like a weight between them. Clark feels his shoulders tense with rolling in his gut and the feeling that crawls up his throat.

“You wanted to bring Kryptonite into the bedroom,” Bruce says. “Why?”

Clark always hated that question, unsure if it was the vigilante in him or the investigative reporter and everything that was ever drilled into him.

“I just wanted to know what it’d be like if I could actually feel the pain,” Clark says.

Bruce looks at him, and Clark feels like he’s given the wrong answer.

“Would you like a repeat of what we did the first time with the collar?” Bruce asks, tone careful and measured.

Clark licks his lips, mouth dry. “Yes - please.”

Bruce’s hand is warm on his thigh, and he squeezes and Clark feels the urge to shed his skin to feel closer. He shudders. He places his own hand over Bruce’s and interlocks their fingers just like that.

The collar feels heavy around his throat, although it can barely be heavier than a cup. It’s peculiar, how much and yet how little he can actually feel, the world having narrowed down into the room, and even then there’s only so much.

He can feel the softness of the sheets without his senses picking up on the individual thread count; can smell Bruce but barely, not being able to smell the way the older man’s scent saturates the bed sheets. He can barely hear as Bruce moves about, rifling through the toy box, let alone being able to hear the birds, the traffic, the noises that exist half a world away. He finds himself missing it, and wonders if Bruce is right every time that he says that Clark is too dependent on his powers. He shoves the thought away.

He’s stretched out over Bruce’s bed, and Bruce is partially kneeling on it, thin riding crop in one hand.

Bruce is keeping much of it the same, but surprising him a bit with the order of it.

The flat of the riding crop ghosts over his inner thighs, the seam of his cunt in his way that has his core pulsing with a vibrant hot need.

Bruce raises it, and Clark tenses almost in anticipation. Bruce brings it down and it trails over the space between his pecs and over his abdomen. He shivers, and liquid pleasure pools in his gut.

He doesn’t even realise he’s closed his eyes until Bruce actually does bring the riding crop down on him, on his thigh and it stings so acutely. It hurts, yes, but not quite as much as he was anticipating.

He doesn’t particularly like it. He hates it, in fact.

Bruce does though, eyes darkened and face flushed just so, and there’s his unmistakable arousal pressing at the smooth line of his pants. He clenches his eyes closed and says, ”green,” before he can think to stop it.

He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t even really want it.

He wants it to make him feel better, to feel like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, but it doesn’t, he just feels stifled.

Bruce brings the crop down again and again in quick succession, a sharp ripple of pain racing through Clark’s body and he has to force himself not to hiss.

He can’t remember something hurting like this, but he knows it’s not the worst thing he’s felt by any measure of the imagination and yet Clark hates it. He wonders if Bruce might ever strike hard enough to draw blood and bile makes itself known in his throat when he remembers the blood spattering Lord Superman, and a stray thought occurs to him that he might just deserve this. He doesn’t stop the thought, not like he thinks he should.

He keeps himself as still as he can; Bruce switches over to the flogger, with thin sharp tassels that sting viciously. He can feel where all the hits have left welts and bruises in their wake, deep lashes against his skin that Bruce will sometimes pause to almost marvel at, fingers ghosting over the irritated skin. It hurts some of them, especially where the skin’s split under the impact.

Bruce stops when his skin splits under the force, small amounts of blood beading at the surface.

“Clark? Colour?” He asks, voice calm but the look in his eyes intense.

Clark struggles for a moment, for words, for anything. “Green, green.”

By the end, after about thirty swats between both the flogger and the riding crop, Clark’s body feels so sharply alight with pain. Bruce stuck mostly to his thighs, but his hips and chest have been caught in the crossfire. Vaguely, he remembers the agonising pain of the migraines he used to get when his powers first started developing, and finds it not too dissimilar in many regards, namely that he wants it to stop.

He never said yellow or red.

Bruce’s hands slide and press into the welts, hands on his hips, moving down to grip Clark’s thighs which carry the worst of the welts. Bruce’s fingers dig in just so and it likes a fresh mark.

Bruce enjoyed it, and Clark - Clark’s glad he enjoyed it. He likes pleasing Bruce.

Bruce’s cock must have been erect for most of it, already leaking and ready to go by the time he grabs Clark’s thighs and settles in between Clark’s thighs, before he pushes in, swift and deep.

His pace is as unforgiving as he was with the tools, almost frantic and Bruce looks it, eyes narrowed, and mouth pulled into an almost snarl sorts, and everytime Clark’s cunt ripples around him his fingers dig in a little bit harder as though to prompt another kind of response like it and Clark aches and yet his arousal feels dead.

Nausea pools in his gut and more than anything he just wants to go to bed.

Bruce murmurs how good he is and what a good boy he’s being and Clark feels something clog up the back of his throat.

Bruce comes, hot and messy, and it feels like he only just avoids collapsing on top of Clark, shoving himself off to the side, and it’s only a moment of delay before his fingers are combing through Clark’s hair.

“Clark, can you tell me how you’re doing?” Bruce asks, nails scratching at his scalp gently.

Clark makes a noise that sounds like “hng,” before he can make his tongue and lips cooperate to force out the word, “green,” and he breathes heavily as though a physical weight is holding him down.

“Did you come?”

Clark makes a noise again, and nods weakly, murmuring, “yes, yes,” even though he didn’t. He probably could have, maybe, if Bruce only touched his cunt and cock but really, Clark’s looking forward to healing more than anything.

“Do you want me to take the collar off?” Bruce asks.

Clark nods, and this time can’t force his tongue and lips to cooperate but Bruce carefully peels the collar off from around his neck.

Clark can feel the tingle of skin knitting itself back together, the ache of where skin had split or bruised dulling until Clark couldn’t even remember what the initial ache could even feel like.

He suppresses a gag when Bruce cleans him down, cloth warm and damp.

Clark turns on his side, and watches as Bruce cleans up, quickly, setting everything either aside for further cleaning at a later point, or tucking the box away. It takes about thirty seconds all in all, before Bruce is gently pulling Clark up, the Kryptonian’s arm over his shoulders, taking his weight although Clark’s sure he doesn’t really need it.

Bruce’s shower is wonderful, and Bruce holds him upright as the stream of water pours over them. Clark lets Bruce wash up, hands between his thighs, over his abdomen and chest.

Bruce’s fingers scratch through his scalp, combing through and untangling his hair before he lathers up shampoo and washes Clark’s hair.

Clark flushes. “Bruce, you don’t need to do this,” he says, back to chest with Bruce.

Bruce goes still but not stiff, hands still in Clark’s hair. The angle must be awkward.

“I want to,” he says, not unkind. “Unless you’re uncomfortable with it?”

Clark doesn’t actually know what’s going on with himself right now. Bruce cleans his hair, and applies a nice layer of conditioner to his hair before rinsing it off.

Clark turns in Bruce’s hold, and wraps his arms around him. It’s warm and wet and awkward but Clark’s not sure he’s even inhabiting his own body at the current moment. He kisses Bruce’s shoulder, more water than Bruce, even with his senses returning to their normal baseline.

Bruce uses his fluffiest towels on them, patting them dry. Clark draws the line at Bruce getting his clothes for him.

The off feeling sticks around. Even when Bruce is pressing their bodies close after the shower, hand at Clark’s nape and legs tangled, it’s off. Clark does his best to ignore it.

He reads through some more articles. Turns out ’BDSM if you don’t like pain’ will actually get you a few hits. Most of them aren’t really what he’s after though. They talk about whether it’s still actually BDSM if you don’t like pain. Clark doesn’t actually know what he’s looking for, if he’s been entirely honest.

He closes the articles down and still feels like he’s chasing after loose ends dangling just inches from his face.

He should probably talk to Bruce about this. He doesn’t.

On a Sunday, he goes down to Kansas, and sits across from his mother.

There are two pastries on the table between them, steaming hot, and Clark can practically taste the blackberry and apple that fill both pies.

There’s a slice of both on his plate, and he uses a fork to carefully take a piece from the slices, savouring each mouthful. Martha Kent has always made the most decadent of pastries, sweet and perfect, and as she’s gotten older, Clark swears her pastries have only gotten better although she swears she hasn’t changed anything about her recipes.

“Ms Adams giving you trouble again?” Clark asks, smiling around a mouthful of apple pie as his Ma scowls and rolls her eyes.

“Sandra is insistent on everything being done a certain way,” she says, looking like she’s barely refraining from throwing her hands in the air in frustration. “I don’t get it.”

As she rambles and talks about what Ms Adams has done since they spoke, Clark finds his thoughts straying, wondering, if there’s ever been a universe where he -

The sweetness sours, and the warm pie feels scalding.

He smiles and nods along where it’s necessary to do so. The only sign that Ma might’ve noticed is the way she hugs him when he leaves, extra tight. Like she used to, when he was afraid that he was going to suddenly float away at any given moment.

He buries his nose in the top of Ma’s hair and he doesn’t want to let go. He does.

The Watchtower kitchens are nearly empty.

There’s a faint twitch to Bruce’s mouth which tells Clark he’s pulling a face underneath the cowl. Clark has only just managed to have a sip of his coffee that Bruce just gave him. He wrinkles his nose, the coffee is black and bitter and steaming.

Clark has another mouthful of coffee, and swallows, licking his lips. Bruce continues to look at him. It’s almost redundant to say Bruce is looking at him intensely, because Clark can’t remember Bruce ever not doing something intensely. It’s still overwhelming to be the focus of it all.

Another mouthful. “What?” Clark asks, careful to temper his words.

Bruce doesn’t play stupid, and act like he doesn’t know what he’s been doing. His head tilts slightly, barely, and says nothing for a long moment. Clark shakes his head, feeling almost fond and snorts.

When he’s finished and cleaned his cup, he finds himself readying to return to duty.

Bruce reaches out before he leaves. His hand wraps around Clark’s wrist and he squeezes it once before letting go and disappearing.

Clark doesn’t think about it too much.

Bruce kisses his bare shoulder. Clark can’t see, he can only feel.

The collar is around his neck. His arms ache with how they’ve been bound behind his back, pulling his spine taut and straight.

The flogger trails over his shoulders.

This time, it seems, Bruce seems intent on making him bleed. The thin strips of leather sting, and perhaps it’s Clark being too accustomed to his invulnerable skin, but his skin splits easily enough.

Bruce checks in of course, voice low and sweet.

Clark grits his teeth and says green and hopes Bruce believes him.

Bruce fucks him, Clark face down and cheek digging into the floor. Bruce uses the rope around his wrists to pull him back and Clark does come this time, Bruce working at his cock. It’s enough that he can ignore the throbbing ache of his body.

They don’t only do that stuff. They still have regular sex, Bruce fucking him so sweet that it hardly feels like the same person, even though Clark knows that being different in bed doesn’t actually mean much.

He enjoys the normal sex they have, he does.

There’s a lump in his throat.

Clark wonders how many Superman’s killed their Batman.

How many Batman’s are currently trying to kill and contain their Superman.

He’s early to work for the first time in a while, leaving the Manor before even Alfred is awake.

(There’s blood, there’s always blood. There’s alternate versions of everyone that come through and sooner or later one of them has a horror story about a Superman gone rogue. There’s been at least one occasion of someone lunging at him because they (Bruce) didn’t know they weren’t in their timeline, and Clark can’t exactly blame them. In their universe, he probably slaughtered their family or destroyed their lives in some other irreparable way.

They don’t really talk about it after they return to their own universe. There isn’t anything to say. Clark isn’t sure if he’d ever want anyone to tell him what they thought.)

He saves a cat from a tree, and the poor thing breaks a nail when it swipes at him. Thankfully the break doesn’t catch a nerve, but he can feel the way the cat’s hair stands on end, and the way it quietly hisses. The cat eagerly curls up in the arms of the local shelter worker who’s currently working reception.

He smiles up at Clark.

There’s a fire. Naturally occurring, he thinks, and he does his best to make quick work of getting everyone to safety. He’s careful with everyone, giving them a once over and getting them situated in a position to help in the event they’ve got an injury, like the elderly man with a bad hip, and the elderly lady who doesn’t have a left leg.

The last bit of the job is the family furthest from the fire, though it’s rapidly spreading. He takes them two at a time, mother and father, and then goes back for their daughter and dog. The dog is small, and more than comfortably rests in the girl's arms, and Clark makes a cradle for the girl and holds her close.

She doesn’t look afraid. Her eyes are big and wide and she looks positively dumbfounded. It’s almost unnerving how she doesn’t blink, as though she isn’t quite ready to miss a moment of looking at him.

They thank him; the parents, the elderly, the child. A few of the firefighters pat his shoulder as they pass.

Clark struggles to breathe. He doesn’t remember how to. He smiles and flies off and hopes. He hopes.

He asks Bruce to hurt him. He asks Bruce to not stop unless he gets a safeword.

They’ve played about fifteen times like this, with Clark giving himself over to Bruce.

“I want to cry. I want you to make me cry,” Clark says, and swallows. He still feels sick.

Bruce blinks, somewhat shocked perhaps, but his eyes inspect every inch of Clark’s face. “Okay, okay, safe words?”

“Red for stop, yellow for pause, green for go,” Clark says.

He never says red. He never says yellow, and there’s no need for him to say green because he asked for no check ins.

Bruce’s open palms make his ass sting until Clark cries out, gasping into the sheets.

Bruce murmurs ”good boy,” and something hot curls up in Clark’ gut, tempered by the pain.

Then it’s the flogger. Bruce enjoys the flogger, and Clark enjoys pleasing Bruce.

It’s always thin strips of pain that sting and ache and the flogger splits his skin with such ease and Clark doesn’t know how he manages to forget it.

His body feels like it’s burning, stinging and aching because the pain is settling into his bones and taking a thorough hold over him with such intensity that Clark doesn’t know if he’ll ever actually manage to escape from it.

He only starts crying by the time Bruce takes the flogger to his ass, welts across his cheeks, and his ass becomes warm before it goes numb. He sobs, face down on the mattress and he can't quite breath.

Bruce flips him over onto his back and he cries out, crying a bit louder as the fabric rubs against his raw skin.

Bruce fucks him just like that, and god, Clark thinks he looks beautiful like that.

Bruce comes inside of him. Clark doesn’t come. He lets Bruce hold him and pet him and kiss him all over. The older man makes it feel like worship, and Clark focuses on five things, then four, then three.

He doesn’t think the lump ever left his throat.

He kept paying for his apartment back in Metropolis even though he didn't use it that often. That’ll probably be changing now.

Bruce didn’t say anything to him. There wasn’t anything to say. There is never anything to say.

The spell was only supposed to inconvenience Clark; a confessing type spell that Clark doesn’t fully understand, but when he looked at someone he’d confess something. Clark assumes the spell worked off of the biggest secret he had in relation to the person he was looking at - of course, the caster assumed the first person he’d look at would be a civilian, and therefore his biggest secret would be his identity.

The first person he looked at was Bruce, because of course Batman was the first person to answer his call for help. They’re alone on the rooftop.

The biggest secret Clark has in relation to Bruce? “I don’t like it when you hurt me. When we have sex. I hate it, even.”

The cowl didn’t let Clark see much about Bruce’s facial expressions. His mouth can be very unassuming when Bruce wants it to be. Even the whited out lenses don’t let Clark see whether he’s blinked or not. Clark doesn’t particularly want to use his x-ray vision.

He doubted that throwing up would be a good idea after saying that. Clark thinks about it anyway.

He remembers Bruce’s hands fisted at his sides, and almost wishes the man would just hit him.

He did the laundry for the apartment regularly enough that there’s no lingering smell in the space, and it smells clean like someone’s lived there.

The kitchen lights are broken. He didn’t really plan on using it anyway. He wants to throw up more often than not, and it’s not like Clark needs to eat.

He lies in bed for a long time, and sooner than he’d liked to admit he has to get ready for work.

He supposes it worked, in a way. He’s lost something and granted, Bruce isn’t dead but Clark feels like he certainly killed the relationship and anything else. He doesn’t want to go on a rampage.

Clark thinks he just wants a hug from Ma.

There’s no bloodlust, no urge to ruin the world beneath his hands. Clark doesn’t know if the pain helped him come to that conclusion; would they have done it, if Bruce - Batman - reminded them that there was a way to keep them weak? A way that Batman always seemed to keep on him, no matter how friendly he and Superman got?

There is no anger. Clark’s just pathetic.

He almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. Normally between work and patrols, he and Bruce would do something. It wasn’t always sex; it was usually reading, treating each other with food in some capacity, or even just being near each other.

The amount of times Bruce would be near Clark, against his side, head in his lap, arm around his shoulders, whenever Clark was finishing an article. Clark would sometimes even just rest his head on Bruce’s shoulder as the older man read, or drank whiskey.

Clark misses it.

He stares blankly at the open document in front of him. The text cursor is almost accusing, and perhaps Clark should be concerned about the software gaining some level of sentience in order to judge him. He’s braced his face on his palm, staring idly.

Metropolis and the rise in public transportation. Despite the way it sounds, it’s actually something Clark’s fairly invested in. Typing just feels inexplicably difficult.

Lois saw him once this morning and gave him his space.

He jerks, elbow knocking against his desk, when his desk phone rings.

“Yes, hello -” and suddenly everything falls away because this is stupid, Clark has an interview to do and at least two more articles to write before the end of this week and he already has enough setbacks as Superman, let alone his mediocre everyday problems.

The thing with having enhanced senses, is that he sometimes knows things before he’s supposed to. It led to Ma and Pa finding out that they couldn’t ever really surprise Clark with a birthday party.

It means that he knows Bruce is his apartment.

He stops at the entrance to the complex for a long moment, sitting on the stairs just outside. His shoulder bag rests against his thigh, strap falling off of his shoulder. The air is cold; it’s a part of reality that Clark is aware of even if he can’t really process the sensation.

Clark doesn’t need to breathe. He counts in the rhythm of four, then seven, then six. He does it again. Again. Again.

He heaves himself up off the stairs, and takes the elevator. He doesn’t know if his legs will survive the stairs. It feels like a small miracle that the elevator even works.

The door is already unlocked; Clark just pushes the door handle down and opens the door. He turns as he closes it, hearing Bruce clatter around in the kitchen. Light spills from the doorway.

He hangs his bag up, and then his suit jacket. He doesn’t need eyes in the back of his head to know Bruce is in the doorway, watching him.

He takes a moment, swallows and feels abit like his ribcage is being forcibly distorted, lungs feeling compressed in his chest. He turns around.

Bruce doesn’t look much different than when Clark last saw him. It’s only been a week or so. Clark keeps expecting the sky to fall, and he can’t be bothered to pay attention to the calendar anymore.

“Hi,” Clark says, and even just saying the words feels like disappointment.

Bruce doesn’t say anything. There’s a line between his brows though, not quite furrowed but the wrinkling tells Clark that Bruce is thinking hard, and trying not to express it.

“I brought you take out,” Bruce says after a moment. “I wanted to keep it simple so I got you pizza.” He pulls back into the kitchen and Clark feels strangely bereft.

Clark follows him, and finds there are two pizza boxes; one has pineapple and the other is pepperoni and peppers. He wonders what Alfred would think. He almost manages a smile.

Bruce sits opposite him. It’s almost bizarre, with Bruce in his immaculate Dior two piece suit. After his first bite, he gets tomato sauce at the corner of his mouth, and he dabs it away with a napkin. Clark doesn’t feel particularly hungry.

Bruce finishes his first slice, by the time Clark’s only just convinced himself to take a fourth bite.

The older man looks almost frustrated, and Clark wants to curl up away from his gaze.

“You haven’t been eating,” Bruce says. It’s just a statement.

“You know I don’t need to eat,” Clark says, dropping his slice onto the plate in front of him.

Bruce looks inexplicably lost, like Clark’s spoken a new alien dialect and he can’t follow the conversation. “You enjoy it.”

Clark swallows. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Alfred was disappointed when you started leaving before breakfast,” Bruce says, “you and Duke are normally the only ones coherent enough in the morning to enjoy and appreciate his food that early.”

Clark wants to say something, maybe try to be witty and see if he can make this better - or at least less awkward. Nothing springs to mind. He misses having breakfast at the Manor. Most of the time they either didn’t show up before Clark had to leave, or on the weekends they’d be half asleep after patrol, with exception of Duke of course.

He swallows. It’s starting to feel like he might live and die with a lump in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Clark says, chooses to say but he finds that he can’t really find the words to elaborate on what he means.

Bruce sucks in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t look shocked pe say. He looks oddly determined, that same old intense focus in his eyes and in the way he clenches his jaw.

“What are you sorry for?” Bruce asks, but despite the way Clark’s insides recoil at the question, he finds himself acknowledging that it’s just a question. Bruce had said it slowly, almost kindly.

It’s just a question.

Clark inhales. He exhales. He doesn’t have to breathe, it serves no purpose. “For lying to you, and abusing your trust.”

Something in Bruce eases. His shoulders drop and his heart slows the smallest amount.

“Why did you do it?”

Now Clark’s really starting to feel like a chastised child, and he resists the almost knee-jerk reaction to just shrug. “I,” he says, and then stops, because he does know. “Give me a minute,” he says instead, and it sounds pathetic even to his own ears. He looks at the table. “Part of it was because I knew you enjoyed it, but I. A part of me felt like I was supposed to want it, or at least that I needed to be punished.”

“Because of the evil dictator versions of you that kept jumping through the multiverse,” Bruce says. Clark looks up, looking at the line between Bruce’s brows instead of his eyes. Bruce’s face is clear, his voice level; it’s very Batman-esque, it's just Batman without the cowl.

Clark doesn’t need to confirm it. Bruce rarely says anything if he isn’t very solidly sure that he’s right, or that he means it. Clark drags a hand over his face, rubbing at the inner corner of his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, he craves sleep, feeling a bone deep exhaustion in himself.

“Clark,” Bruce says, like he means to ask something, but instead stops. “I thought I had taken advantage of you.”

Clark’s head snaps up, an almost violent movement. He wants to say sorry but he doubts that would be enough at this point. “No,” he says, voice raspy and almost thinning at the edges. “No, no, never Bruce, I’m.” He clears his throat. “I’ve always thought I was a bit of a freak,” he admits quietly, wringing his hands together, “and in the beginning I practically thought I was a monster. It wasn’t fair of me to use you as the means to the end.”

“You’re right, it wasn’t fair,” Bruce says, “but you also said that some of it was because I enjoyed it.”

“If you hadn’t have enjoyed it I probably would’ve just found some equally stupid method of getting over it,” Clark says, “and it’s not - it’s not your fault that you like and enjoy BDSM. I consented Bruce, I said yes every time.” He looks at Bruce, making eye contact and there is no judgement in Bruce’s eyes, no conflict and no misery. “I just didn’t do it for the right reasons.”

“I figured out the reason why you were doing it about two hours after you told me you didn’t like sex,” Bruce says. “I just didn’t know what to do with that information. I thought I had taken advantage of you being in a vulnerable headspace.”

Clark bites down the way he wants to apologise. It won’t really address anything. “I didn’t hate everything, but I guess I just don’t like pain. It felt like a way to keep me in line, a reminder that if I did fuck up or did,” he breathes, in and out and the air is a physical weight in his chest, pressing against his lungs, the back of his throat. “It was a way for you to help me self-flagellate.”

The silence between them is tense, difficult. Clark might just be a shitty reporter if he’s struggling with his words.

Bruce breaks the silence. “You don’t deserve punishment,” Bruce says, “I want you to see a therapist.”

Clark nods. “Okay.”

Bruce looks at him. “I love you,” he says, gentle.

Clark blinks again and again and feels a burning behind his eyes and there’s a weight in his throat, pressing against the back of his tongue and he -

Bruce pushes his chair back, and moves around the table, dropping to knees next to Clark’s chair. Clark twists toward him, and Bruce pulls him closer, Clark’s face in the crook of Bruce’s neck.

He isn’t crying, not quite, but he’s shaking trembling, and he feels like his body is unrestrained and barely contained by his skin and his breath is shaky and shallow, Bruce’s hand sliding down his spine, a firm pressure in an almost petting motion.

“You don’t need to be punished,” Bruce murmurs, “you’re so good, you’re so good, how can you ever think you aren’t.”

Clark clings to him, hands fisting and no doubt wrinkling his expensive suit. Bruce smells like Bruce, clean and like leather, and that soap that he thinks Bruce only uses because Alfred bought it for him once and now he can’t change his habit, and musky and like skin and like dry cleaning and Clark inhales greedily like it might get taken away from him.

The pizza’s long gone cold by the time they pull away, and cold greasy food currently makes Clark the most nauseous to even think about.

Bruce drags him toward bed after a while, Clark’s limbs feel pathetic as he tries to make them work. Bruce seems content to take most of his weight.

He deposits Clark into bed, fully dressed, shoes and all and Clark would be embarrassed but his entire body feels like a lead weight, dead weight.

Bruce lifts one of his feet up by the back of his ankle, placing it flat against his thigh, and then working to untie his laces. He loosens the tongue of the shoe, and then takes it again by the heel to slide it off Clark’s foot.

Clark thinks he’s probably just ruining a pair of very expensive pants with his shoes.

Bruce repeats the motions with his other foot, and drops it to the floor alongside the other one, and uses the side of his shoe to push them into some kind of pile next to Clark’s bed. He’ll probably trip over those in the morning.

Bruce takes both ankles and places Clark’s feet at the bottom of the bed.

He walks closer to the head of the bed, hand on the waistband of Clark’s pants. Bruce pauses. “Do you want me to help you out of these or would you rather not?”

Lazily, Clark reaches up to undo the knot of his tie. “No,” he says, “but, can I cuddle you?”

Bruce smiles, faint. “Let me get changed.”

Clark hums and tosses his tie onto his bedside. He twists onto his side, rubbing his cheek against his pillow, and closes his eyes, listening to the way that Bruce patters around his apartment.

He must just strip down to his underwear, folding his suit and using a hanger for his jacket, and setting his shoes nicely next to it.

In comparison to the clothes treated with such care and attention, Clark’s apartment must look horrific in comparison.

Bruce gets into bed, and gets the covers over them both.

The chair is plush. It doesn’t make sitting in it and in his Supersuit any less weird.

The therapist looks at him, focused and blank in face. Clark appreciates that.

She is calm and her questions are sharp and calculated and sometimes Clark’s answers feel disappointing to his own ears.

“The point isn’t for me to make you feel stupid,” she said, using her pen to gesticulate, “the point is for me to help critically evaluate your thought process. Sometimes, to truly get over something, we must accept the slim possibility that it might be true. If not, we might spend forever wondering about whether or not we’re truly good, and ignoring the many good things we do for others, and ourselves, in our day to day lives.”

Clark kisses Bruce. He pulls back and Bruce smiles at him, and Clark absolutely has to kiss him again because he loves when Bruce smiles.

Bruce’s hands frame his waist, holding him close, and Clark holds Bruce’s face between his two hands, cradling his jaw. Clark kisses him again.

“You’re in a good mood,” Bruce says, and Clark smiles, and then pauses.

Bruce doesn’t let go of him, but his thumbs move in idle patterns on his waist.

“Last night, um, when I helped you after patrol, and you practically passed out the bed,” Bruce snorts, and Clark smiles, hands sliding up and down over Bruce’s shoulders, “you, uh, you called me a good boy.”

To Bruce goes stiff or tense is entirely wrong, but there’s an absence of calmness for certain.

“I liked it,” Clark says. Bruce looks at him, mouth pulled into a line but his eyes are carefully inspecting every bit of Clark, looking for the slightest give in his body language. “I liked being good for you,” Clark blurts out.

Bruce eases somewhat. “You like being good for me?”

“I, yes. I like being good for you.”

“Thank you. For communicating.”

Clark smiles and kisses Bruce again, firm and sweet and then he peppers kisses over Bruce’s stubbly cheeks because he enjoys hearing the amused sounds that Bruce makes.

Bruce kisses his shoulder. “I did something.”

“Oh?”

“Would you be down for negotiating?”

“You - you mean like?”

“If you want to, of course.”

Bruce walks him through everything. He is careful and in control and he is firm.

There are no whips, no handcuffs, no kryptonite, nothing.

Bruce took careful care to strip him down to his underwear, Clark having already stripped himself of his shoes and socks.

He undid the knot of Clark’s tie, and wound up the material in a roll and placed it into the bedside table. He peeled Clark’s shirt off of his shoulders, helping Clark take his arms out of his sleeves and taking the time to put it on a hanger, because Alfred prefers it that way when it comes to doing the washing. Bruce unbuckled his belt, and then slid it out through all his belt loops and he also rolls that up and places it on the bedside table. Next was the zipper, sliding it down, and peeling the two sections of fabric apart to expose Clark’s underwear, and then slid the pants of his fabric down.

He had looked at Clark, when he was stripped down to just his underwear, and Clark squirmed. Bruce pinched the hemmed bottom of his underwear, pulling it down over his thighs, slowly baring Clark to his eyes, until the fabric was pooled around his ankles.

Finally, out of his underwear, Clark let Bruce manoeuvre him as he wanted. Bruce got him to lay on the bed, on his stomach, face on its side and supported by a pillow.

“Can you put your hands above your head?” Bruce asks, holding Clark’s wrists and guiding them to where he wanted them to go, palms flat against the headboard. “Just like that, good boy.” He punctuates the statement by combing through Clark’s hair, tugging lightly and Clark makes a soft noise in acknowledgement, eyes fluttering at the sensation.

“Now, you’re going to hold your hands there, not because you can’t move or because you're physically bound, but because you want to be good for me,” Bruce says, fingers ghosting over Clark’s nape before pulling away.

“Yes Bruce,” Clark says, a bit muffled by his upper arm.

“Good,” Bruce says, and Clark nearly whines and feels a bit mortified for wanting Bruce to keep calling him a good boy.

From the bedside table, next to the belt and tie, Bruce gets a feather. It’s pure white, but not synthetic.

“I’m going to use this feather on you, is that okay? What’s your safeword?” Bruce asks.

“Red, Bruce.”

“Good boy.”

Instead of jumping straight in with the feather, Bruce uses his hand, middle and index finger smoothing a trail down the indent of his spine, firm enough for Clark to feel it without their being too much pressure. Once, twice, Bruce’s fingers move up and down and Clark already feels so sensitive, unsure that his back could feel like this.

“It’s a shame that we neglected this,” Bruce says, voice low as though to protect the atmosphere they’ve started to cultivate together. “You must have so many sweet spots that we could have been focusing on, that need just the right touch.”

Bruce’s fingers pull away, and then the feather replaces it. Clark gasps, sharp, back arching ever so slightly and pushing his chest into the mattress. It’s not as though he’s ticklish, hardly at all if he’s being honest, but the feather is different to Bruce’s fingers. Bruce’s fingers had weight and pressure behind them, but the feather is delicate and soft, barely there strands that move over his skin, a phantom touch that leaves Clark almost desperate for more, for the weight to be applied. He squirms, sure his ears are burning, and his breathing quickens as Bruce uses the feather.

Like he did with his finger, Bruce trails the length of his spine, once, twice, and Clark’s barely resisting a shiver.

“How does that feel so far?” Bruce asks, voice low and soft.

“Good,” Clark says, voice softer than he thought it would be, “I like it.”

“Good,” Bruce says. “I want you to focus on how this makes you feel good, on how you enjoy this.”

The feather traces the lines of his shoulder blades, a soft and slow curving motion. Then the feather follows the sides of his waist, down to where his hips meet his ass, Bruce repeating this on both sides. The feather ghosts of his ass, not touching but the air is disturbed and Clark holds his breath in anticipation, waiting for the contact to be made.

Bruce instead moves onto his legs, trailing random patterns onto the backs of his thighs, circular and spiralling patterns traced lower and lower until the feather meets the back of his knees. The feather marks either side of where Clark’s hamstrings are, and then the feather follows the shape of his calves, the curve of the muscle and how they narrow into his ankles. Almost teasingly, the feather moves back and forth over the heel of his ankle, before briskly being brushed over the sole of his foot and Clark wrinkles his nose.

“On your back, if you don’t mind,” Bruce says, and Clark doesn’t even process it as the question Bruce probably means it as, lying on his back with his arms above his head. “Good boy,” Bruce practically purrs, “I didn’t have to ask you for that, you’re doing so well.” Clark makes a pathetic noise that’s probably a mewl of some sort, and Bruce’s palm is warm on his stomach.

Clark blinks his eyes open, not even aware he had closed them in the first place. Bruce looks at him intently.

“Safeword, Clark?”

Clark blinks slowly. “Green Bruce, ‘m green.”

Bruce pulls his hand away, but Clark isn’t too concerned.

The feather reappears, this time starting at Clark’s feet. The touches over the tops of his feet are equally as brisk as the attention given to his soles, instead, Bruce focusing on where his feet meet his ankle, swirling around the jut of his ankle bone, and then trailing up his shins, once twice. The feather moves on to carving the shape and dip of his kneecaps, circular motions that start broad and end narrow. Bruce moves the feather up, focusing on his thighs, and he makes similar motions as he did to the backs of Clark’s thighs, swooping motions that are broad, mixed with arrow circular motions. Clark gasps, high in his throat when Bruce pays attention to his inner thigh and feels his toes curl ever so slightly.

Moving up, the feather traces the jut of his hip bone, twice for either side, trailing the seam of his adonis belt, and then it moves higher, meeting Clark’s belly button. The feather just dips in, and instead of squirming Clark just sighs, bleeding tension that he didn’t even know he was still holding.

The feather traces his abdomen, vaguely in the shape of abs, but Bruce very quickly moves to trace the outline of Clark’s waist and hips, moving up to the curve of his chest, where his shoulders meet his torso. The feather briefly makes the detour to follow the path of Clark’s collarbones, dipping into the hollow of his throat, before moving back to trace the contours and definition that shape his upper arms. Bruce traces the curve of his muscles, and follows the dip of where bicep meets elbow and elbow meets forearm, and Bruce follows the path up to Clark’s wrists, and then makes a fanning motion with the feather over the backs of Clark’s hands.

Bruce, despite all the attention he’s bestowed on Clark’s body, isn’t done. The feather moves back to the hollow of Clark’s throat, moving up to follow the curve of Clark’s jaw, before it ghosts over his mouth; and then it follows the bridge of Clark’s nose; the ridge of his eyebrows; and his hairline, Bruce using a hand to brush the stray curls away from his forehead.

The feather is removed entirely from Clark’s body, and is probably placed on the bedside table.

“How do you feel, Clark?” Bruce asks, and Clark opens his eyes.

“Good, good,” Clark says, words quiet and soft, and he flexes his hands and feet just to feel them move. There’s a pleasant stillness to him, and he can’t think about much other than the feather and Bruce.

Bruce hums. “Good, do you want to stop, or do you want to come?”

Clark flushes, and whines, “Come, I want to come.” He’s not exactly aroused but he’s capable of being aroused, can feel the faint tendrils in his gut and he genuinely wants to go further.

“Okay, can you give me your safeword?”

“Green, ‘m green Bruce please.”

“Good boy.”

Bruce stripped down, out of his suit, carefully and quickly folding up and keeping everything pristine, before he gets on the bed next to Clark, hands on Clark’s thighs gently spreading them apart for Bruce to get between them, resting back on his heels.

The older man’s hands smooth up and down his thighs and Clark sighs, humming low in his throat. Bruce’s hands slowly edge closer and closer toward Clark’s cunt, fingertips applying a barely there pressure to his skin.

Bruce has nice fingers, long and thicker than most but not excessively, the kind that make him good at delicate, fiddly tasks; they look wonderful doing just about anything. Clark moans, when Bruce’s fingers push in, cunt spread by Bruce’s other hand, one finger steadily pushing in and out, and Clark’s surprised at how wet his cunt is, and his nerves tingle, thighs tensing.

Another finger presses inside alongside the first, the movements slow and languid with Bruce proving himself to be in no particular rush. Bruce normally does this just to please Clark because the younger man likes it, but he alos likes it because it gets his cunt worked up and stimulated so that when his cock pushes in and he starts fucking him it boils over quickly, orgasm overwhelming Clark.

Now it isn't much different. Bruce uses his thumb to make semi-circle movements underneath Clark’s cock, not directly stimulating the nub but still close enough that pleasure builds up in Clark’s gut. Clark squirms moaning softly, hips jerking ever so slightly.

“Can you keep your hips still for me, sweetheart?” Bruce says, voice low and sweet. “Good boy,” he says, when Clark complies and Clark burns up at the words.

Bruce adds a third finger, thumb still working on the underside of his cock, and Clark fights to keep his hips still and steady and to keep his palms flat on the headboard. Bruce works quicker but still not exactly rushing the process of opening Clark up. The older man's thumb nail briefly grazes against Clark’s cock, and Clark cries out, gut tensing and breathing getting laboured as he keeps his hips from bucking up into Bruce’s hand.

“Good boy,” Bruce says, and the hand was keeping Clark’s cunt spread instead strokes at his thigh. “I’m going to fuck you now, Clark, what’s your safeword?”

“Bruce, I’m green, green please fuck me,” Clark says, borderline rambling. He’s breathless and desperate but his hands are on the headboard and his hips are stationary.

Bruce pulls his fingers free, and Clark looks at him and watches as he takes the wet fingers into his mouth, tasting Clark’s wetness and making eye contact.

With his hand that’s now wet with his own spit wraps around his cock. Bruce pushes his cock in, a long thrust that’s straight to the base. Clark moans, louder than he expects.

“Bruce, please, daddy,” Clark says, cunt clenching around Bruce’s cock.

Bruce groans low in his throat. “You can move now sweetheart, you’ve been so good, you can move your hands.”

Clark immediately reaches up to wrap his arms around Bruce’s neck, bringing Bruce down closer to him, the older man having to plant his hands either side of Clark’s head. “Daddy, Bruce please,” Clark says, breathy and short on breath as Bruce starts fucking in and out, slow and steady.

They hadn’t talked about the - the daddy kink in too much detail but Bruce has said it was up to Clark if he wanted to include it. He wasn’t sure whether Bruce was doing it for him, but with the way Bruce’s eyes are dark and dilated, and his cock twitches and god - Clark can hear the way his pulse quickens when he says the word, his arousal weighing thick on Clark’s tongue. The younger man indulges his senses in a way he’d never previously let them, focusing on Bruce, Bruce, Bruce in his entirety, his smell, the way he sounds, the way he feels under Clarks palms and the way he looks hovering above Clark, intense and focused.

The pace of his hips is controlled and tight, and so damn good, hitting every sweet spot Clark has, that he forgets he has but ones that Bruce never forgets to remind him about, and his fat cockhead presses against his spot that has Clark’s head pressing back into the mattress, squirming. He wraps his legs around Bruce’s waist, tight and Clark isn’t even trying for leverage but he’s just trying to hold on, clinging to Bruce with hands and thighs.

“Good sweetheart, so good for me, you are so good,” Bruce says, and Clark’s overwhelmed.

His hands are firm on Bruce’s nape, pulling him down and kissing, and Bruce licks into his mouth using his tongue as though trying to pry something from Clark, searching under his tongue, behind his teeth and the sensation has Clark’s toes curling, and his cunt spasming needily around Bruce’s cock, that's still pistoning in and out of Clark.

Bruce supports his weight with arm - and the inferno in Clark’s gut roars louder at the casual display of strength - and reaches down, fingers pressing down on Clark’s cock, and it’s too much. Bruce is fucking his cunt with such precision and the way he’s touching Clark’s cock, the sensations cease to be separate; instead blending together into a singular white inferno that overstimulates him thoroughly from the inside out and he can’t escape it.

Some of Bruce’s weight drops on Clark and it’s wonderful, balancing out the pleasure that threatens to drag him away in the waves. Clark moans and whimpers and clenches around Bruce and he can’t help it, but Bruce groans so delicious when he does that he wants to do it again just for that sound -

“Come for me,” Bruce says, voice roughened around the edges and delicious and, and - “Come for me Clark, you’ve been so good you deserve, come for daddy.”

Tears bead and spill from the corner of his eyes and he can’t do much more than wrap his lims around Bruce in a borderline stranglehold, but the older man comes down easily enough. He keeps fucking Clark through his orgasm and Clark feels like it never ends, never ceases one bit of pleasure extending to another.

“Daddy, daddy, come for me, please, “ Clark says, breathless and desperate but more than anything wanting Bruce to come, wanting to feel that he shares Clark’s pleasure.

Bruce groans, face in Clark’s neck, breath hot on his skin, and he’s coming, hips pumping in weakly as he does so, come filling Clark up. He’s always enjoyed that feeling, the fullness on top of Bruce’s cock being inside of him.

Bruce lets all of his weight drop onto Clark, and he feels tethered under that weight. Floating but anchored and bound to Bruce by some physicality, and Clark sighs, moaning weakly.

Eventually though, Bruce pulls out, and disappears. The weight in his throat tries to make a reappearance, but he pushes himself up and focuses his senses and Bruce is inly in the bathroom he’s fine, he’s okay.

Bruce wipes him down, hands careful when touching his cunt and the water is lukewarm but Clark doesn’t mind. Bruce pulls back the covers, and settles Clark underneath, still bare because when Bruce tries to get them clothes, he refuses to let go of his wrist.

The older man smiles slightly, making his way to bed with Clark. He lays the younger man on his back and Clark lets himself be moved. Instead of laying next to him, Bruce gets between Clark’s legs, and rests his head on the younger man’s chest. Clark easily takes his weight and feels he breathes easier under Bruce’s weight. He combs his fingers through Bruce’s hair, focusing his senses in one at a time.

Bruce’s hands draw absent patterns on his skin and the pressure in Clark’s throat is released in a gasp, quiet but there, and he melts into the sheets, anchored by Bruce’s weight.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asks, nose nuzzling the valley between Clark’s pecs.

“Yeah,” Clark says.

“What did you like?”

“I liked the worship part I suppose, it was interesting, though I think next time maybe just your hands? I like the pressure of them.”

“Duly noted.”

“Can we try something else next time?”

Bruce rests his chin on Clark’s sternum. “Of course sweetheart,” and Clark smiles at the name.

“I was doing some reading up about cockwarming,” Clark says, and swallows. Bruce hums.

“I was going to suggest some reporter Clark Kent and billionaire Bruce Wayne roleplay,” Bruce says, smirking, and Clark swats his arm, flushing but smiling.

Bruce takes the barely there hit and laughs, before getting out of bed. He helps Clark up after him. “I need to get you washed, and you are going to let me,” Bruce says, leading Clark with one arm behind him.

“Yes Daddy,” Clark says, and laughs at Bruce’s back.

The shower is warm and Bruce’s hands are wonderful as they clean him, and at least Bruce lets Clark do his hair.

They change the bedding together, and get in bed, and Bruce falls asleep with most of his weight sprawled out on top of him.