"One night it was raining awfully, even for Gotham. Most everyone had given up for fear of drowning in the open air, except for one gang. The armband," and Bruce hadn't paused when Clark did, continuing whatever busywork he was given, though now he reaches up halfway, as if remembering where wore it, "kept slipping. I got back after dawn and that was what I was most angry about. I was breaking Tim in still and he was doing that.. hyper-attentive to everything act, and would stay in the cave until I left, even if he was dead exhausted, or if I told him to leave. I sat there for five hours fixing it, so it wouldn't slip off. At first. I ended up remaking it. The crest was asymmetrical, I don't know who printed the original ones. Tim fell asleep."
His eyes are closed and there are so many things going through his head. So very many things.
He remembers. God, the things he remembers. He can't remember things he wasn't there for, though. But he can imagine. He can imagine Bruce working with that black armband, restitching, adjusting, redesigning. Being frustrated at the crest printing. Being frustrated at the arm band.
Frustrated at the reason for the arm band.
Frustrated at everything.
He pushes himself up from the counter and looks Bruce in the eyes then, putting the knife down, brushing the spinach off his fingers. Then, clearly purposeful, he steps closer to Bruce and leans into his personal space.
Bruce looks back at him and doesn't budge. Don't blink. His expression is still neutral, but there's something in his eyes-- something well concealed but present, and for the first time, it's possible to notice that he's angry. Bruce is furious, in fact. Gone far past the explosion point and back around into something impossibly cold.
It is not entirely - even chiefly - aimed at Clark.
His voice is quieter now.
"And you tell me that I need to remember someone gives a damn. When you have no idea what it's like."
He closes his eyes then, closes them and leans in so slowly. Bruce might think, wildly, impossibly, that he was trying to kiss him except that the mechanics are all wrong. No, he's leaning in to press his forehead to Bruce's, leaving that the only point of contact between them. Eyes closed, forehead to forehead, the rim of his glasses touching his brow on every breath out.
"You really think that, don't you?" and his voice is only just above a whisper.
Bruce doesn't think that Clark's trying to kiss him. He has no idea what Clark's trying to do, so he holds still and watches him, even when their foreheads touch and he's so close that his vision blurs; his brain which already can pass for a very bristly batcomputer goes into a bit of a beep-boop what the fuck setting for a moment, but it's not enough to dent his mood of quiet anger.
"You are behaving as though you don't know," Bruce says, his voice quiet but not whispered, the same as it was when he spoke a moment before. He thinks he should probably step away, but a tiny part of him cautions against it, holding motionless in front of a t-rex like in that movie Tim puts on that he always drifts off in the middle of. "I am losing sleep over your lack of discretion not because I want to be left alone, but because you have no concern for your own safety. It takes one opportunistic bastard who recognizes you and all the little genial innocuous things you're saying to all these nice people, and you won't see it coming, and you don't know what it's like being on the other side of that, Clark."
He doesn't know where to start because there's just so much to say, so much to explain. So much that had become crystallized in that terrible otherworld, things that had been nimbus and ill-defined and known-without-words suddenly the only thing that mattered. The only thing that made any sense.
He wants to start with the red, the yellow, the blue. He wants to start with the part that's easy, the part that's all Superman. He can't, though. He can't because he doesn't feel like Superman right now. The only time he's felt like Superman at all has been when he was talking to Kamala.
He wants to start with Regina, with the world where he's a story, where she'd known exactly who and what he was without much prompting at all. How pointless is it to hide when people know them like they know the Grey Ghost? Like Clark knows To Kill A Mockingbird. Like Bruce knows The Gay Blade.
He could start with a godling who'd come to dinner, plied him with wine and flirtatious glances, and who'd eventually disappeared in a fit of frustration with him because for all that he loves, he cares, he genuinely believes in people... trusting them with his heart is next to impossible.
He doesn't start with any of them, though. He can't start with any of them. Because Bruce thinks he doesn't know. Bruce actually thinks he doesn't know.
"I live every day of my life with the knowledge that you won't last through even a quarter of my life span," and his voice is so quiet, so terribly quiet.
"It runs like a program through the back of my mind, every waking moment, every single day, right along with the beat of your heart in my ears. And it isn't 'maybes' or 'one opportunistic bastard'. It's every bullet, every toxin, every madman. You could die from a faulty engine. Bruce Wayne could be hit by a semi-truck. And that's not even counting the times I did think you were dead, all of them lived through at the speed of a Kryptonian mind. All of them with the absolute certainty that I should have saved you because on a sunny day? There's nothing I can't do.
"It took a machine of absolute destruction to take me out, Bruce. And I came back. I. Came. Back. It doesn't change that year, but don't tell me that doesn't put it in perspective."
He breathed out then, shaking as he tilts a little, eyes fluttering open with enough force to send little puffs of air against the skin of Bruce's face.
"And it's only been worse since I came from that world. Not because that Bruce had lost hope in his Clark. Not because my own Bruce was actually going to let them have me ingest a kryptonite capsule with a radio detonator to kill me at the first sign of madness, but because I saw what happened when I lost Lois.
"And having seen it? I cannot even imagine what is going to happen when I lose you."
Bruce's heart rate doesn't change, which is probably annoying. He'd run potential conversations through his head when he decided this was how he was going to approach the subject. He listens, though, and after Clark stops talking, he raises his head away-- but only so he can reach up and take the other man's glasses off.
(An inserted K-capsule wired to detonate isn't a terrible idea, as safeguard measures go. He'll remember it.)
"I expect to die, Kal." Now, his voice is quieter, looking at his unreal blue eyes plainly. "I'm never going to die peacefully of old age. I see everything coming. Every time." And Clark doesn't see it about himself, and that makes Bruce fucking crazy. Anyone can be Batman. There is only Kal-El to be Superman, and as much as the truth of it embittered him for so many years, the Earth needs Superman.
"You'll pull through, when I go. Because even if you are right on the edge, you will have a moment to stop and think about what I'd say if I knew you were doing it because of me."
It's all he can say. It's the truth, in stark black letters. It's everything he lives with, every day, every moment, every millisecond. Nothing Bruce is saying is news. Nothing he's saying is unexpected. It's the backbeat in his brain, the mantra at the back of his mind. It's the one person he can never, ever save without destroying.
He makes a noise at the back of his throat when the glasses are removed, his whole body reaching for a moment without his hands for his boundaries. For his shield. For the thing that lets him hide. Now there's nothing between them. Absolutely nothing between them and there's nothing better. Nothing worse.
I expect to die, Kal. I know. I'm never going to die peacefully of old age. "I know." I see everything coming. "I know." Every time."I know."
Anyone can be Batman. But only one man can be Bruce Wayne. Only one man can be B, can be his best friend, can make him feel safe in all the darkness he knows is full of terrors.
The Earth might need Superman, but Clark Kent needs Bruce Wayne.
You'll pull through, when I go. "I know." He knows he will. He knows he will because
Because even if you are right on the edge, you will have a moment to stop and think about what I'd say if I knew you were doing it because of me.
Because of me.
Because of me.
"You goddamn bastard."
Which is the last thing he says before his hands are in dark hair, his body is pressing him against the wall with a surprising amount of deference to a certain gunshot wound, and his lips are firmly against Bruce Wayne's.
Your friend with the key won't even hold your hand? that daft girl had asked, and then there had been no response that Bruce could see. He'd understood in a heartbeat, in that absence. Still hasn't inspected it too closely-- not over any squeamishness, but he's so overloaded with everything else it was just too much. Oh, he'd thought, and left it.
Oh he thinks again now. And there's no leaving it.
(His heartrate does speed up this time. Damnit.)
Bruce doesn't protest, doesn't play dead or tense up, but he doesn't return it, either. He's too busy processing what's happening and what it feels like and if he can deal with someone this size pressing him into a wall to react. He's still holding Clark's glasses in one hand, hands that are against the other man's shoulders. It's nice. Better than he might have imagined, if he'd ever let himself imagine it. He thinks he likes the way Clark smells.
"That explains some things," he says softly when they're apart. It's not disdainful or wry. He's gentle.
His heart is still sped up, though, and as he stands there he thinks of the absolute last thing he wants to think of
Just you and me forever
sees in his mind's eye the absolute last thing he wants to see
All deep inside you
and the way his pulse trips is not one of passion but of panic.
"Can we maybe," he begins, still managing to sound calm, "not against the wall."
Clark's shaking like a colt after its first breakneck sprint, every muscle quivering and liquid and at first, the words are just noise because he's shivering too much. Because he just kissed Bruce.
He just kissed Bruce.
Oh God, he just kissed Bruce.
They were fighting and then they were talking about dying and then he was kissing Bruce and there are a few seconds that are just a wall of white in his mind, utter blankness, until he remembers how to anything. Anything at all.
Language. Words. Bruce is talking.
Bruce is...
"O-of course."
He pulls back, hating every millimeter he's putting between them, hating it and knowing he may have just ruined the most important relationship in his life because now that he's thinking, now that that white space is filling in with color and sound and heat, he realizes that Bruce didn't kiss him back.
They were making a quiche.
They were making a fucking quiche and now the world is falling down. Is this how it happens for him? Is this how
"Of course."
I thought I knew.
He needs his glasses. Bruce has his glasses and he needs his glasses. Everything is in his eyes and he needs his glasses, please. Please, God, he needs his glasses.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
He ruined everything again. He didn't need his strength or his speed and he still
"You have--" swallow, hard, even Bruce can probably hear it, can Bruce hear his heart beating? Is his heart beating? Or is that just the pieces falling down
Surprising to exactly no one, Bruce just stares at him.
It takes him a second longer than he'd like to figure out what's happening, because he's stuck in a bad place in his head (which he does not want to be in for a second, or a second longer, or at all, ever). The things Joker said, the slick-jagged fingers in his brain forcing everything to be real, are too close. He broke free-- he won, he has to hold onto that, he won. But it was days ago. Days that feel unreal and dreamy because they've been days spent here, and at home in the real world, it had been no time at all when he had been sick with that for so long. He'd won his mind back and an hour after that was authorizing his suicide protocol.
And now Clark is ... having some kind of anxiety attack. Bruce stares for another second, willing himself to unscramble it.
"Kal." Snapped. Then again: "Kal. Look at me." It's the voice he uses when he's pulling someone up in the field. Not anywhere near one of his nicer voices by a thousand miles, but it's the one he knows will bring his attention back to the here and now.
When he's sure the other man is listening, he dials it back, but is still serious when he addresses him. "When I say 'not against the wall', you take a step back and say 'okay'. That's it."
The battlefield voice hits him like a green bullet even if he already looked sick, his head turning like a slap to focus on Bruce. He listens to the words, he does, understands them even. When is to specify a time. I is a pronoun. Say is a verb. He's got this. He's got this.
He's Superman.
And looks nothing so much like a guide animal taking commands until the words translate into meaning. God, what did he do? What the fuck did he just do?
You just assaulted your best friend. That's what you did, Kent.
You assaulted your injured, grieving, poisoned, traumatized best friend.
He was just making some quiche and he wants his glasses so badly he's crushing the handle of the knife in his hand, leaving it a misshapen lump with the imprint of his fingers deep in the metal.
"Of course," he says again, because of course. Because can we maybe not and against the wall and of course you step back and you show him how to make dinner like you said you would and then you leave and you never come back because he doesn't need you, he's never needed you like you need him, because he survived a year without you and you could hardly last fifteen minutes when that meteor exploded
When your brother died in your arms
You've never touched another person you love without their express permission in your entire life because how you feel doesn't require them to feel the same way, no matter how much they care. No matter how deep the bond between you goes.
"Stop." Snapping again. Bruce puts one hand on his hip, just something to do instead of-- spontaneously combust from irritation and its sudden concussive impact on his mood. He's still holding Clark's glasses.
"Stop it right now. We're not doing this, you're not beating yourself up over kissing me. If you'd actually lost control I'd have noticed." He would, in fact, have been crushed to death against the aforementioned wall. Quite notably, this did not occur. "That reaction was entirely about me and the shit I have been through, not you. I need you to accept it and not dwell on it, because I don't want to dwell on it."
There's a more raw, honest note to him as he finishes that terse delivery of what are almost orders (it's hard for him to communicate important things in another way). I need you to do this, for me.
Somehow annoyance gets through where everything else failed, or maybe he's just had long enough to process; it's honestly not clear even to him. Then again, he's not exactly running on all cylinders and he has better things to think about.
But he breathes in deep, swallows again, and stands up straight. He considers asking for his glasses, seriously considers it, but if Bruce doesn't get to wear his armor for this, neither does he. He can't make it fair, but he can make it less unfair.
"I--" no "Of--" no "I shouldn't have. You've got enough on your plate. I... I don't even know what possessed me to--" dammit "I had no right."
"Shut up," he says, without any enthusiasm behind it. It's a shut up that you say to your best friend who's being insufferable over a non-issue. Bruce will take sulking alien over collapsing in on myself under the weight of my boyscout honor, or whatever it is that Clark does when he's torturing himself. He's bad at torturing himself, and it's tiring to watch. Bruce isn't sure if he's happy or not that Clark's just never gotten better at it via osmosis, as Bruce is a goddamn professional.
"I know exactly what possessed you, so come off it," he says in Kryptonese, some of the tension leaving him. "Do you want to keep working on the stale pudding you were making-" - look he doesn't know the Kryptonian word for quiche give him a break - "or do you want me to order Chinese?"
Edited (there is also no krypton word for chinese he just said chinese, yes i am editing simply for the update status line) 2015-12-01 05:59 (UTC)
Honestly, he's pretty sure that if he tries to handle food in the next ten minutes, he's going to puke from pure anxiousness, which would be a new experience because he's never spat out anything but blood before.
The glamorous life of a superhero.
"Call for Chinese."
He is so goddamn tired.
"At this rate, you'll end up with the knife in your ceiling, honestly."
And he knows none of them gave a first month's deposit or anything, but it's the principle of the thing. His nerves are absolutely shot, his muscle control is currently at code yellow to seriously questionable, and he has simultaneous, contradictory urges to kiss Bruce again or lock himself in the bathroom.
"And the word is quiche," he clarifies, providing the Kryptonese for it. Or at least the nearest local substitute to such a thing.
Alright, Clark has passed the correcting his Kryptonese vocabulary test. At least he's not going into shock, and the cutlery is not a sacrifice he feels particularly moved to mourn. "Sit down," he says, shooing him out of the small kitchen towards the apartment's main area. Bruce gets his phone out and calls, leaving it wedged between his ear and shoulder while he cleans the counter off. 'Cleans' may be generous; he just scrapes everything (wrappers and utensils included) into the pan that was going to be used and shoves it in its entirety onto a shelf on the fridge.
Worth noting: at no point does he move into a position where Clark is entirely out of a corner of his field of vision. If he sneaks out of here, he's a dead man, gut-wrenching conversations of weaknesses be damned. Perhaps there is actually a God out there despite Bruce's persistent disbelief, because he does not say So my point is, stop talking about your abilities to people you don't know.
When he's done he sets his phone on the counter, and walks the few feet away into the rest of the flat, looking at Clark impassively. Hopefully he's not curled into a fetal position or something.
Over the time it takes Bruce to phone in the Chinese food, Clark goes from nauseous to terrified and finally to annoyed in return. Because whatever the hell he did, and he's still not sure what he did, it was huge to him. It was... everything. It was stupid. It was... incredibly unwise. It was completely up in the air as to what Bruce actually thought of it or how or if he could handle it, but handling it like Clark piddled in his cave is not helpful.
He should have cleaned up the food. He should have... handled this whole thing. Instead, of course, he'd spiraled and pissed Bruce off and apparently, had acted in such a way that the other man either thinks he's in the midst of temporary insanity or he's resolutely pretending Nothing Happened and he's not sure he can handle either of those things.
He hadn't wanted to do it like that.
He'd had... plans. Frankly ridiculous plans, but plans all the same. Some of them had been silly, some had been more realistic, but all of them had involved waiting. He'd never intended to let Bruce know how he felt while everything was up in the air, while he was still recovering, Jesus, and while Jason was still an unknown quantity out in the city.
So when Bruce finally looks over at him impassively--
Impassively? So we're pretending this never happened.
One eyebrow raises slightly. He crosses his arms. What do you mean what after that, Jesus Christ. For another moment he's quiet, continuing to just look at him. Then:
"You know me very well."
As much as anyone barring Alfred, or maybe Barbara. Bruce stares at him, his expression slowly creeping towards actual emotion. There's a faint line between his eyebrows, like when he's trying to make sense of something. He lets that statement hang there; Clark knows him very well. Even if their timelines are different, what he's demonstrated so far holds true to that, because even if Clark only knows the parts Bruce has let him seen, he's let him see an awful lot.
"There is never going to be a universe where I'm good at this."
It is not a fair concept in terms of overall fairness of the universe, but that doesn't exist. It's a fair concept in terms of Things That Are Wrong With Bruce Wayne. If Clark's being genuine, he can't have imagined a scenario in which Bruce magically transformed into a different person like a prince being untransformed from a frog. If Clark is going to fall apart over a reaction like that, then they are fucked, because as far as bad reactions go, this is one way down on the shallow not-really-that-bad end of the disaster pool.
There's a dozen things he's trying to think right now but none of them actually come to fruition. They just plummet like a bird falling out of the sky into a small pile of unfortunate, unpoetic, dead animals.
"Are you in a relationship with Bruce Wayne in your universe?" --it comes out harsher than he wants it to, and maybe that shows on his face, with how the slight frown across his eyebrows deepens fractionally. Or maybe it just makes him look angry, he doesn't know. He can't seem to get a read on Clark right now, which is annoying. He really needs him to be present, because Bruce has no idea what he's doing with this.
Don't leave something this fragile in my hands, he wants to say. I'm going to break it. But of course this is how it's going to happen, of course Bruce doesn't get to take a day, an hour off. It's not Clark's fault he's godawful at everything. He steels himself, taking a slow breath.
Clark's good at any number of things, but taking charge in a sensitive situation has never been his strong suit, mostly because he's desperate not to bully anyone. Something like this? That's even worse.
That tone, and that question, make him angry because it implies a certain amount of distrust. It implies--
"Don't you think I would have mentioned it when we were comparing notes? I know you think I'm an idiot but I should hope you'd expect me to realize that something like that would be pertinent."
And like that, that spark of anger just... dies. Because--
"Then again, maybe it's a fair question. 'Relationship'. What the hell else have we ever had, Bruce?"
Clark is the one with the highschool sweetheart and the all-American marriage. Even if his experiences in that other dimension are cracking it - You didn't tell me you were separated from Lois, he hasn't said - he's got infinitely more experience with being stable than Bruce does. Bruce, whose great love was a woman who tortured and fought him as much as loved and held him, who used him in a eugenics experiment for her psychotic father. God, he wishes Selina would just work out, just for a week. It's always frantically trying to make the puzzle pieces fit with her, as though they both know they're supposed to and get so angry when it won't click into place.
"Okay."
Okay, they weren't together that way. Bruce didn't really think so, because he thinks the kicked-dog looks Clark's been giving him every so often would be slightly different if so, but he's trying to work this out.
"I don't know. A friendship, an intense one. Do you understand that my reaction five minutes ago was not revulsion about you kissing me, but something unrelated that I have been through that you had no way of knowing about?"
He turns his head to glance over at Bruce with an intensely skeptical expression.
"Was I psychic where you come from?"
Think about what you just said, Bruce.
But he's never been the type to leave it at that, as much because he likes words, finds comfort in words, in ordering the universe with a few errant letters and a certain turn of phrase. He lets out a sigh, scrubs his face and pushes himself to sit up a little.
"I really didn't mean to kiss you earlier. I just... I was looking at you and you'd said-- and I was thinking about it and I was going to wait, Bruce. I know how much is on your plate right now, even if I don't know about whatever you're talking about."
He sucks in a breath, makes it come slow, and lets himself be tired.
"I was looking at you and I couldn't wait and I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with this right now."
Something flickers over his face, but it's gone before it can be detectable as any particular emotion. Yes, he knows, no one ever means to kiss him. Bruce is who you fuck around with but never anything more, because he's mean and too intense and psychologically unstable. There's a joke that gets rolled out every so often, that every member of every League and every mask in Gotham has been in love with Batman-- temporary insanity, it happens to everyone, you'll get over it, don't worry. It's uncharitable to think that about Clark, and he doesn't really believe that's the case, but it's an old tired sore spot hit by accident. He suppresses it.
"Too late," Bruce says, because he is dealing with it now, so there's no point sulking about it. And then: "I know you're not psychic. That's why I'm telling you. Do you understand?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"One night it was raining awfully, even for Gotham. Most everyone had given up for fear of drowning in the open air, except for one gang. The armband," and Bruce hadn't paused when Clark did, continuing whatever busywork he was given, though now he reaches up halfway, as if remembering where wore it, "kept slipping. I got back after dawn and that was what I was most angry about. I was breaking Tim in still and he was doing that.. hyper-attentive to everything act, and would stay in the cave until I left, even if he was dead exhausted, or if I told him to leave. I sat there for five hours fixing it, so it wouldn't slip off. At first. I ended up remaking it. The crest was asymmetrical, I don't know who printed the original ones. Tim fell asleep."
no subject
He remembers. God, the things he remembers. He can't remember things he wasn't there for, though. But he can imagine. He can imagine Bruce working with that black armband, restitching, adjusting, redesigning. Being frustrated at the crest printing. Being frustrated at the arm band.
Frustrated at the reason for the arm band.
Frustrated at everything.
He pushes himself up from the counter and looks Bruce in the eyes then, putting the knife down, brushing the spinach off his fingers. Then, clearly purposeful, he steps closer to Bruce and leans into his personal space.
"And?"
no subject
It is not entirely - even chiefly - aimed at Clark.
His voice is quieter now.
"And you tell me that I need to remember someone gives a damn. When you have no idea what it's like."
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"You really think that, don't you?" and his voice is only just above a whisper.
"You really think I don't know."
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"You are behaving as though you don't know," Bruce says, his voice quiet but not whispered, the same as it was when he spoke a moment before. He thinks he should probably step away, but a tiny part of him cautions against it, holding motionless in front of a t-rex like in that movie Tim puts on that he always drifts off in the middle of. "I am losing sleep over your lack of discretion not because I want to be left alone, but because you have no concern for your own safety. It takes one opportunistic bastard who recognizes you and all the little genial innocuous things you're saying to all these nice people, and you won't see it coming, and you don't know what it's like being on the other side of that, Clark."
no subject
He wants to start with the red, the yellow, the blue. He wants to start with the part that's easy, the part that's all Superman. He can't, though. He can't because he doesn't feel like Superman right now. The only time he's felt like Superman at all has been when he was talking to Kamala.
He wants to start with Regina, with the world where he's a story, where she'd known exactly who and what he was without much prompting at all. How pointless is it to hide when people know them like they know the Grey Ghost? Like Clark knows To Kill A Mockingbird. Like Bruce knows The Gay Blade.
He could start with a godling who'd come to dinner, plied him with wine and flirtatious glances, and who'd eventually disappeared in a fit of frustration with him because for all that he loves, he cares, he genuinely believes in people... trusting them with his heart is next to impossible.
He doesn't start with any of them, though. He can't start with any of them. Because Bruce thinks he doesn't know. Bruce actually thinks he doesn't know.
"I live every day of my life with the knowledge that you won't last through even a quarter of my life span," and his voice is so quiet, so terribly quiet.
"It runs like a program through the back of my mind, every waking moment, every single day, right along with the beat of your heart in my ears. And it isn't 'maybes' or 'one opportunistic bastard'. It's every bullet, every toxin, every madman. You could die from a faulty engine. Bruce Wayne could be hit by a semi-truck. And that's not even counting the times I did think you were dead, all of them lived through at the speed of a Kryptonian mind. All of them with the absolute certainty that I should have saved you because on a sunny day? There's nothing I can't do.
"It took a machine of absolute destruction to take me out, Bruce. And I came back. I. Came. Back. It doesn't change that year, but don't tell me that doesn't put it in perspective."
He breathed out then, shaking as he tilts a little, eyes fluttering open with enough force to send little puffs of air against the skin of Bruce's face.
"And it's only been worse since I came from that world. Not because that Bruce had lost hope in his Clark. Not because my own Bruce was actually going to let them have me ingest a kryptonite capsule with a radio detonator to kill me at the first sign of madness, but because I saw what happened when I lost Lois.
"And having seen it? I cannot even imagine what is going to happen when I lose you."
no subject
(An inserted K-capsule wired to detonate isn't a terrible idea, as safeguard measures go. He'll remember it.)
"I expect to die, Kal." Now, his voice is quieter, looking at his unreal blue eyes plainly. "I'm never going to die peacefully of old age. I see everything coming. Every time." And Clark doesn't see it about himself, and that makes Bruce fucking crazy. Anyone can be Batman. There is only Kal-El to be Superman, and as much as the truth of it embittered him for so many years, the Earth needs Superman.
"You'll pull through, when I go. Because even if you are right on the edge, you will have a moment to stop and think about what I'd say if I knew you were doing it because of me."
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It's all he can say. It's the truth, in stark black letters. It's everything he lives with, every day, every moment, every millisecond. Nothing Bruce is saying is news. Nothing he's saying is unexpected. It's the backbeat in his brain, the mantra at the back of his mind. It's the one person he can never, ever save without destroying.
He makes a noise at the back of his throat when the glasses are removed, his whole body reaching for a moment without his hands for his boundaries. For his shield. For the thing that lets him hide. Now there's nothing between them. Absolutely nothing between them and there's nothing better. Nothing worse.
I expect to die, Kal. I know. I'm never going to die peacefully of old age. "I know." I see everything coming. "I know." Every time. "I know."
Anyone can be Batman. But only one man can be Bruce Wayne. Only one man can be B, can be his best friend, can make him feel safe in all the darkness he knows is full of terrors.
The Earth might need Superman, but Clark Kent needs Bruce Wayne.
You'll pull through, when I go. "I know." He knows he will. He knows he will because
Because even if you are right on the edge, you will have a moment to stop and think about what I'd say if I knew you were doing it because of me.
Because of me.
Because of me.
"You goddamn bastard."
Which is the last thing he says before his hands are in dark hair, his body is pressing him against the wall with a surprising amount of deference to a certain gunshot wound, and his lips are firmly against Bruce Wayne's.
no subject
Oh he thinks again now. And there's no leaving it.
(His heartrate does speed up this time. Damnit.)
Bruce doesn't protest, doesn't play dead or tense up, but he doesn't return it, either. He's too busy processing what's happening and what it feels like and if he can deal with someone this size pressing him into a wall to react. He's still holding Clark's glasses in one hand, hands that are against the other man's shoulders. It's nice. Better than he might have imagined, if he'd ever let himself imagine it. He thinks he likes the way Clark smells.
"That explains some things," he says softly when they're apart. It's not disdainful or wry. He's gentle.
His heart is still sped up, though, and as he stands there he thinks of the absolute last thing he wants to think of
Just you and me forever
sees in his mind's eye the absolute last thing he wants to see
All deep inside you
and the way his pulse trips is not one of passion but of panic.
"Can we maybe," he begins, still managing to sound calm, "not against the wall."
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
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He just kissed Bruce.
Oh God, he just kissed Bruce.
They were fighting and then they were talking about dying and then he was kissing Bruce and there are a few seconds that are just a wall of white in his mind, utter blankness, until he remembers how to anything. Anything at all.
Language. Words. Bruce is talking.
Bruce is...
"O-of course."
He pulls back, hating every millimeter he's putting between them, hating it and knowing he may have just ruined the most important relationship in his life because now that he's thinking, now that that white space is filling in with color and sound and heat, he realizes that Bruce didn't kiss him back.
They were making a quiche.
They were making a fucking quiche and now the world is falling down. Is this how it happens for him? Is this how
"Of course."
I thought I knew.
He needs his glasses. Bruce has his glasses and he needs his glasses. Everything is in his eyes and he needs his glasses, please. Please, God, he needs his glasses.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
He ruined everything again. He didn't need his strength or his speed and he still
"You have--" swallow, hard, even Bruce can probably hear it, can Bruce hear his heart beating? Is his heart beating? Or is that just the pieces falling down
down
down
"I was making you dinner."
He was showing him how to make dinner.
"I was-- how to make dinner."
He was showing him how to make dinner.
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It takes him a second longer than he'd like to figure out what's happening, because he's stuck in a bad place in his head (which he does not want to be in for a second, or a second longer, or at all, ever). The things Joker said, the slick-jagged fingers in his brain forcing everything to be real, are too close. He broke free-- he won, he has to hold onto that, he won. But it was days ago. Days that feel unreal and dreamy because they've been days spent here, and at home in the real world, it had been no time at all when he had been sick with that for so long. He'd won his mind back and an hour after that was authorizing his suicide protocol.
And now Clark is ... having some kind of anxiety attack. Bruce stares for another second, willing himself to unscramble it.
"Kal." Snapped. Then again: "Kal. Look at me." It's the voice he uses when he's pulling someone up in the field. Not anywhere near one of his nicer voices by a thousand miles, but it's the one he knows will bring his attention back to the here and now.
When he's sure the other man is listening, he dials it back, but is still serious when he addresses him. "When I say 'not against the wall', you take a step back and say 'okay'. That's it."
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He's Superman.
And looks nothing so much like a guide animal taking commands until the words translate into meaning. God, what did he do? What the fuck did he just do?
You just assaulted your best friend. That's what you did, Kent.
You assaulted your injured, grieving, poisoned, traumatized best friend.
He was just making some quiche and he wants his glasses so badly he's crushing the handle of the knife in his hand, leaving it a misshapen lump with the imprint of his fingers deep in the metal.
"Of course," he says again, because of course. Because can we maybe not and against the wall and of course you step back and you show him how to make dinner like you said you would and then you leave and you never come back because he doesn't need you, he's never needed you like you need him, because he survived a year without you and you could hardly last fifteen minutes when that meteor exploded
When your brother died in your arms
You've never touched another person you love without their express permission in your entire life because how you feel doesn't require them to feel the same way, no matter how much they care. No matter how deep the bond between you goes.
You take a step back and say
"Okay."
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"Stop it right now. We're not doing this, you're not beating yourself up over kissing me. If you'd actually lost control I'd have noticed." He would, in fact, have been crushed to death against the aforementioned wall. Quite notably, this did not occur. "That reaction was entirely about me and the shit I have been through, not you. I need you to accept it and not dwell on it, because I don't want to dwell on it."
There's a more raw, honest note to him as he finishes that terse delivery of what are almost orders (it's hard for him to communicate important things in another way). I need you to do this, for me.
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But he breathes in deep, swallows again, and stands up straight. He considers asking for his glasses, seriously considers it, but if Bruce doesn't get to wear his armor for this, neither does he. He can't make it fair, but he can make it less unfair.
"I--" no "Of--" no "I shouldn't have. You've got enough on your plate. I... I don't even know what possessed me to--" dammit "I had no right."
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"I know exactly what possessed you, so come off it," he says in Kryptonese, some of the tension leaving him. "Do you want to keep working on the stale pudding you were making-" - look he doesn't know the Kryptonian word for quiche give him a break - "or do you want me to order Chinese?"
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The glamorous life of a superhero.
"Call for Chinese."
He is so goddamn tired.
"At this rate, you'll end up with the knife in your ceiling, honestly."
And he knows none of them gave a first month's deposit or anything, but it's the principle of the thing. His nerves are absolutely shot, his muscle control is currently at code yellow to seriously questionable, and he has simultaneous, contradictory urges to kiss Bruce again or lock himself in the bathroom.
"And the word is quiche," he clarifies, providing the Kryptonese for it. Or at least the nearest local substitute to such a thing.
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Worth noting: at no point does he move into a position where Clark is entirely out of a corner of his field of vision. If he sneaks out of here, he's a dead man, gut-wrenching conversations of weaknesses be damned. Perhaps there is actually a God out there despite Bruce's persistent disbelief, because he does not say So my point is, stop talking about your abilities to people you don't know.
When he's done he sets his phone on the counter, and walks the few feet away into the rest of the flat, looking at Clark impassively. Hopefully he's not curled into a fetal position or something.
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He should have cleaned up the food. He should have... handled this whole thing. Instead, of course, he'd spiraled and pissed Bruce off and apparently, had acted in such a way that the other man either thinks he's in the midst of temporary insanity or he's resolutely pretending Nothing Happened and he's not sure he can handle either of those things.
He hadn't wanted to do it like that.
He'd had... plans. Frankly ridiculous plans, but plans all the same. Some of them had been silly, some had been more realistic, but all of them had involved waiting. He'd never intended to let Bruce know how he felt while everything was up in the air, while he was still recovering, Jesus, and while Jason was still an unknown quantity out in the city.
So when Bruce finally looks over at him impassively--
Impassively? So we're pretending this never happened.
"What?"
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"You know me very well."
As much as anyone barring Alfred, or maybe Barbara. Bruce stares at him, his expression slowly creeping towards actual emotion. There's a faint line between his eyebrows, like when he's trying to make sense of something. He lets that statement hang there; Clark knows him very well. Even if their timelines are different, what he's demonstrated so far holds true to that, because even if Clark only knows the parts Bruce has let him seen, he's let him see an awful lot.
"There is never going to be a universe where I'm good at this."
It is not a fair concept in terms of overall fairness of the universe, but that doesn't exist. It's a fair concept in terms of Things That Are Wrong With Bruce Wayne. If Clark's being genuine, he can't have imagined a scenario in which Bruce magically transformed into a different person like a prince being untransformed from a frog. If Clark is going to fall apart over a reaction like that, then they are fucked, because as far as bad reactions go, this is one way down on the shallow not-really-that-bad end of the disaster pool.
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"I don't even know what you think 'this' is."
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Don't leave something this fragile in my hands, he wants to say. I'm going to break it. But of course this is how it's going to happen, of course Bruce doesn't get to take a day, an hour off. It's not Clark's fault he's godawful at everything. He steels himself, taking a slow breath.
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That tone, and that question, make him angry because it implies a certain amount of distrust. It implies--
"Don't you think I would have mentioned it when we were comparing notes? I know you think I'm an idiot but I should hope you'd expect me to realize that something like that would be pertinent."
And like that, that spark of anger just... dies. Because--
"Then again, maybe it's a fair question. 'Relationship'. What the hell else have we ever had, Bruce?"
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"Okay."
Okay, they weren't together that way. Bruce didn't really think so, because he thinks the kicked-dog looks Clark's been giving him every so often would be slightly different if so, but he's trying to work this out.
"I don't know. A friendship, an intense one. Do you understand that my reaction five minutes ago was not revulsion about you kissing me, but something unrelated that I have been through that you had no way of knowing about?"
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"Was I psychic where you come from?"
Think about what you just said, Bruce.
But he's never been the type to leave it at that, as much because he likes words, finds comfort in words, in ordering the universe with a few errant letters and a certain turn of phrase. He lets out a sigh, scrubs his face and pushes himself to sit up a little.
"I really didn't mean to kiss you earlier. I just... I was looking at you and you'd said-- and I was thinking about it and I was going to wait, Bruce. I know how much is on your plate right now, even if I don't know about whatever you're talking about."
He sucks in a breath, makes it come slow, and lets himself be tired.
"I was looking at you and I couldn't wait and I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with this right now."
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"Too late," Bruce says, because he is dealing with it now, so there's no point sulking about it. And then: "I know you're not psychic. That's why I'm telling you. Do you understand?"
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