Chapter Text
Footsteps echo from the ground floor, heading up the curved staircase onto the second floor. Clark had picked up the sound of Bruce’s heartbeat when his car crossed onto the long gravel driveway. Rather, he tuned into it when he heard the crunch of the small stones.
“In the walk-in!”
He hears the pause as Bruce listens for him, and the steps resume. Clark can recognize his cadence from across the world, and differentiate from when he’s in his work persona, and when he’s wearing the cowl. He keeps working, pulling clothes out of the machine—a very fancy all-in-one washer and dryer—and dumps them into Alfred’s trusty basket. It’s a simple gray thing that has lasted the butler for years, and that Clark now shares with him until he finally retires. If that ever happens.
“Wha—hello,” Bruce purrs. “What do we have here?”
“Just the laundry.” Clark grabs the last sock at the very back of the machine, leaning forward and heading the very audible hum of appreciation. “Ah,” he says, holding the sock and looking himself up and down.
Clark is wearing an old Smallville Crows football jersey. His parents had bought it larger than necessary, expecting his alien nature to cause innumerable growth spurts. They didn’t want him playing, but Clark had pleaded with them. It comes right to mid-thigh, giving Bruce a view of his underpants when he was leaning into the machine. There’s a reason Bruce calls it the baby-making shirt.
“Wait,” Clark holds the sock out, clearly cornered. Bruce blocks the exit with his board frame, and Clark doesn’t really want to bust down the walls of their walk-in closet and laundry room. He moves to put the island dresser between them. “I spilled chocolate milk on my clothes, and I figured I might as well do all the laundry.”
“Chocolate milk?” Bruce cocks a thick dark brow, entering the room.
“I saw something online where people were using a power drill to put powder in milk, and—you know what, nevermind. I don’t like the way you’re looking at me, Mr. Wayne.”
“I think you quite like the way I’m looking at you.” Bruce places his hands on both edges of the marble countertop, claiming the space and letting Clark know that there is no escape. Maybe up —the ceilings are high enough for it—but he’d need to move fast enough to slip through the door before Bruce launches himself at him, and those are just not good odds. “I still have to get you back for this morning.”
“I have lasagna in the oven. Alfred’s recipe.”
“The oven has a timer, and I know you use it.”
“I like to turn it off before it goes off.” The nose always knows.
“And I like that shirt on you.”
Clark steps to one side, and Bruce moves to block him. He can’t help the smile that appears on his face, a perfect mirror to his husband’s joy. Clark tries the other side, and Bruce is there, too. Both of them are quite decisive, so the dance lasts only a moment before Clark tries to leap past the older man; Bruce catches him by the waist, hugging him and showering him with kisses.
“You smell good,” he purrs while nipping the lobe of Clark’s ear.
It had taken them years to get here, and every day that Bruce loves him, especially so openly, Clark is grateful. He shifts in his husband’s arms, encircling his neck and kissing him deeply.
“Any chance you’ll tell me about your day, first?”
“Not a single one.”
“ Fine,” Clark grins into Bruce’s lips, and lets his husband have his way with him.
The sound of Bruce’s heart will always comfort Clark; he rests his head on his chest, fingers toying with the soft hairs there. Clark likes it, but he knows it won’t be long before Bruce shaves, or waxes, or whatever his perfectionist heart pleases. In return for his quiet affections, Bruce caresses his head, drawing a long happy groan out of Clark.
“Keep making those noises, and we might have to go again,” Bruce warns.
“And here I thought you weren’t serious about making a baby.”
His hand slips lower on Clark’s spine, all the way to the base where he teases small circles before slipping lower. Shivers trail back up his back, and Clark moans softly. A single finger penetrates him, thrusting lazily, but mostly plugging him.
“Can’t let it slip out.” They’d decided to opt against knotting, this time.
“Mhm,” Clark’s eyes flutter shut. “You sure you want to stay here on the floor?” Kryptonians may be impervious to aches and soreness, but Bruce is not. He seems to attract every injury under the sun.
“Probably not,” the human says honestly. “You also have a lasagna to check on. Shower, then dinner?”
“Sounds like a date. I’ll meet you in the shower.”
Fortunately, the lasagna isn’t burnt, only slightly overcooked. Clark sets it on the dining room table, lightly covered, and flies back to his beloved for both of them to inevitably get distracted in the shower. Their love is boundless, and neither of them want to hold back ever again.
Bruce helps set the table, which is one of Clark’s favourite sights; he loves to see Bruce being homey, it was one of the first signs that Bruce was truly comfortable with him. He’d poured Clark a cup of tea, an eternity ago, in his small apartment in Metropolis. Clark smiles, watching him as he prepares a side-salad.
“You’re staring,” Bruce chimes.
“I am,” Clark agrees. “I thought marrying you meant I got the all-you-can-stare package.”
“Of course.” The smile on Bruce’s face is soft, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a faint blush on his cheeks.
“Are you going to tell me about your day, or is that some kind of classified business information?” That or Bruce is using it as some weird kind of foreplay—the kind that involves begging. Clark wouldn’t put it past him. “How is your new protégé? ”
“He’s… Hm.” Bruce pauses.
“Uh oh.”
“No, no, he’s a good kid. He’s a little sheltered, and… dutiful.”
“Ah.”
There’s nothing wrong with sheltered, it’s why the young man is visiting and learning from Bruce. Dutifulness is good, too. Clark can understand dutiful. The problem is… the business world can be as vicious as the streets of Gotham. Less blood, but equally cutting. Clark didn’t understand it before, but through Bruce and even through Lex, he sees how this kind of life changes a person.
“His father runs one of the biggest defence contractors in Europe, and he sent him here the week of his birthday.”
Oh. Now, that is heartbreaking.
Clark slides up next to Bruce, setting the salad on the table and hugs him. He kisses his cheek. The two of them are too old to get upset about birthdays, but birthdays have always been important in the Kent household and Bruce… Well, Bruce can’t imagine having a father who could be so cold and so callous.
“So, what is the great Brucie Wayne going to do?” He asks, resting his chin on his husband’s shoulder.
“I’m going to take him out, and we’re going to party.”
“You know a dinner will do just fine. Most people enjoy that.”
“I’m sure they do, but dinner with two old farts?” Bruce pulls out Clark’s chair, and kisses his temple once he’s seated.
“Oh, I’m a part of your plans? Since when?”
“What? You don’t want to go dancing like we used to?” The glimmer in Bruce’s gray eyes is playful. Only he can blur the lines of dancing and… other things that don’t require clothes. The way he moves when he’s trying to impress, it’s like nothing Clark has ever seen before.
“Somehow, it feels even less appropriate now that we’re married.”
“Why? ”
“Because! Back then, I could have been your new weekly fling, no one would care. Plus, I don’t think you’re going to bring him somewhere dark and dingy.” That’s just not how they treat guests, especially ones they’re trying to do something nice for. “Go, get it out of your system, Brucie. Where were you going to bring him, anyway?”
“I was thinking of Velaris.”
“Bruce,” Clark warns. He pauses, massaging his brow.
“Clark,” Bruce counters.
“You’re working.”
“Of course, that is why Tamlin came here after all. To work with the Bruce Wayne.” He holds his hand out for Clark’s plate, cutting out a square of lasagna.
“And yet, who invited the Batman? You’re working a case!”
“I can do both. I’ve been meaning to look into the club ever since Sieffre’s son took over.”
“You know, there’s an irony of you trying to uplift one dutiful kid and trying to poke holes in another one’s integrity because you think he’ll be weaker than his father.”
“Not him, just his security,” Bruce smiles, and slides Clark’s plate back in front of him.
Clark levels him with an unimpressed stare. Sieffre Hewn has existed in a gray area for both Bruce Wayne and the Batman; his dealings dabble in dark things, but he’s always found a way to skirt the line of bad and good. No company, or businessman is perfect, Clark knows that better than anyone else, but some make their intentions… clearer. He would go as far as calling Sieffre Hewn a crime lord, but… There’s just something about him.
The Hewns are old money, inhumanly old, and they have so much of it that they make the Waynes look like nouveau riche. Clark had tried to look into them to help Bruce—first as Clark Kent the reporter, prodigy of the Putlizer prize winning editor-in-chief Lois Lane, and when that didn’t work, as Superman. The only thing he could sniff out is that there is a magic that shrouds them, and as soon as he shared that with Bruce, Clark was ordered to stay the hell away from them.
Maybe I should go to the club.
He could provide Bruce with back up or… he can continue to insist that maybe, just maybe Bruce should leave the Hewns alone. Clark likens their relationship to his own rivalry with Lex; after a certain amount of years, they continue to push and pull against the order of things, but there is an understanding there that both of them are needed to provide the world with balance. The human who acts like a god, and the god who acts human—not Clark’s words, but Bruce’s.
“Eat,” Clark insists. “Then, you can tell me about your new mentee and convince me to let you go through with your plan.” Someone has to put the kid first. It’ll be practice for what’s to come. He waves his fork at Bruce before his husband can argue; they both know he’ll do as he pleases, whether Clark likes it or not. “Eat.”