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Clark found Bruce Wayne in a narrow offshoot of a corridor on the basement floor, entirely empty of waitstaff and partygoers, and couldn't believe his own luck.
“Mr. Wayne,” he called out, advancing on the man quickly. Bruce Wayne turned over his shoulder, eyebrows drawn down, a flare of his nostrils that signaled black, bloody murder. But Clark was used to that from potential interviewees—perks of the job, Lois called it. “Clark Kent, Daily Planet. Do you have time for a question?”
“My foundation has already issued a statement on… books.” Wayne was turning back around, starting to walk away.
Clark stepped closer, until he was right up in the man’s personal space. “In a rush to get somewhere, Mr. Wayne?” he asked sharply. Wayne’s back was tense, his eyes slanted and narrow when he glared over his shoulder. “It's a party. Aren't you having fun?”
Wayne turned around, a smirk curling up the side of his mouth. “Daily Planet,” he said in a voice as soft as silk. Clark’s throat went abruptly dry. Maybe he shouldn't have stepped so close. Maybe this was a mistake. “Don't I own that one?”
He tried to smile back, unruffled. “Nope. I’d like to talk to you about Gotham's Bat.”
Heart rate up. Body temperature escalating. Bruce Wayne stepped closer. His eyes had dropped to Clark’s mouth. This was… this was not the way he had intended for tonight to go.
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Bruce Wayne asked, in a voice that went straight to his cock. Clark bit his lip in a nervous gesture he thought he’d gotten rid of in middle school, and watched those dark, brown eyes flood with black.
Alfred had disconnected their commlink. There was, by Bruce’s estimation, a little over six minutes left for the leech to complete its download of Luthor’s server data.
Go upstairs, Alfred had said, and socialize, after Mercy Graves found him loitering in the server room. But the idea of making small talk with people he didn't give a damn about—it rankled deeply, crawling under his skin, like a wound gone septic. Bruce had found a narrow stairwell instead, gone down once more on silent feet, certain he wasn't being followed, certain nobody was watching. There was an idea gathering some traction, in the back of his mind, of finding a quiet, empty space somewhere, whiling away the rest of his time, before picking up the device and making his escape.
And then Clark Kent called out his name, and that had been the end of that.
How had he been followed, was what Bruce wanted to know. Who the hell was this kid, who could walk in such perfect fucking silence that Bruce, with his decade plus of experience on the job, hadn't noticed his tail.
‘Aren't you having fun,’ the little shit dared to ask, stepping into his space, but there was that flash in his eye, that reckless glint that Bruce knew so intimately, and he hadn't been able to help his answering smile.
Clark Kent. He rolled the name slowly, savored it, stepped right back, and felt the slow, answering warmth coast down his spine, gather low in his gut. Responsive, some sane, rational part of him noticed; nothing but proximity and Kent responded like he could feel Bruce against his skin, and then that was all he could think of--
‘I’d like to talk about Gotham’s Bat.’
It should have focused him. Should have brought him to his senses. Should have doused the hunger, and should have forced to consider several new variables: that Kent was a reporter, that his paper was vocally pro-Superman, that he was digging into Bruce's past, that he was digging into Batman.
It did none of those things.
It did--
What it did was make Bruce want to bend this kid out of shape too, push him out of his skin, put him off-balance, flushed and sweaty and begging, he wanted--
What the fuck, what the fuck was happening to him--
Is that what you wanted to talk about, Bruce heard himself say, because at some point apparently his mouth had seceded from the union, pulled a Texas and gone astray, and then Clark Kent said, in that low, hoarse voice, “Mr. Wayne,” and that's it, that's all she wrote, that was the moment Bruce knew he was doomed, because all of a sudden, his world had narrowed to a single point of desire--to hear Kent sound like that, again and again and again.
Well. Fuck.
Clark wasn't sure how the hell they'd gotten here, but the bathroom door was closed and locked, the lip of a restroom sink was digging into his back, and Wayne was huge and hot and hard against his stomach, and Clark had never, never been kissed quite like this before.
“Jesus,” Wayne murmured pulling back. “How the hell are you so--”
“Yeah, right back at you,” Clark replied, voice guttural and low, rolling his hips against Wayne’s cock, electric lines of heat arcing up his spine, making his eyes fall shut and his head fall back. He heard a choked sound of pleasure, and felt Wayne’s knees start to buckle.
No.
Fear fisted tightly in his gut.
He couldn't do this to him. Not again, he wouldn't, Wayne might’ve been a supercilious bastard, but he was also innocent--
“Wayne, I-- I don't think--” but by then Wayne had dropped to the tile, made short work of his pants, and that broad, hot palm was stroking up his cock, kiss-bruised lips opening around the head.
“Yes?” Wayne asked, voice deep and rich, liquid like chocolate, warm air gusting around the tip of his cock, and Clark’s hips jerked forward, his cock brushing against those lips.
“Oh god, just--suck me, come on,” he mumbled, one hand tight around the counter, as Wayne nuzzled his cock, smeared precome all over that beautiful mouth. There were dark spots dancing in his vision. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat.
God, it had never been like this, for him.
Never before.
And then hot wet heat enveloped him, and Clark forgot everything else.
Clark was still shaking, as he tucked himself back in, and Wayne rinsed his mouth in the sink. The whole place stank of sex: there was a puddle of semen on the floor where Wayne had jerked himself off furiously, while Clark had come in heady, spine-liquefying waves, in that hot, gorgeous mouth.
In the back of his mind, the guilt had begun to seep like rotten sewage, staining the afterglow.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, how the hell could he have-- How could he have done that to someone--
“Mr. Wayne,” Clark said, and then stopped. His voice was a--a mess, and he hadn't been the one who had been getting his throat brutally fucked. “We need to--um, that is--”
Wayne arched an eyebrow at him. He was already at the door, turning the lock and pulling it open. His hair had been slicked back with tap water, into its usual pristine arrangement. The only thing to suggest they had been doing what they had done was the dull flush around his neck and the way his mouth was still chapped and red.
“You aren't going to ask me for my number, are you, Kent?” Wayne's tone was mocking, sardonic, the rougher sound of it like whiskey over gravel.
“No,” Clark stammered, coloring brightly. “No, that's not--”
“Good.” he smiled gently as if softening the blow. “Because I’m not going to call. Have a nice night.”
And he walked away, and Clark shut his eyes, and didn't look in the mirror.
He would call. Clark already knew that. Wayne wouldn't even know why he was calling, but he would call.
“I have to call him,” Bruce muttered darkly, staring at the screen. His head was throbbing, just a little, but that was what you got when you stared at a computer screen thirteen hours in a row. “Dammit, I have to.”
“Do you really think it's him, master Wayne?” Alfred asked. “Or would it prefer it to be him?”
“Why in god's name would I--oh. Jesus, Alfred, ten minutes in a public restroom does not a love story make.”
“I didn't suggest anything of the sort,” Alfred said pointedly.
Bruce stayed silent, and frowned at the screen some more.
“Perhaps an inventory of the guest list might be in order?” Alfred suggested pointedly. “Before we start leaping to convenient conclusions?”
“No,” Bruce muttered, angry with himself for being… for seeing a pretty face and losing his damn head. That was what Bruce Wayne did. That wasn't him. “I left him there, in the bathroom, after planting the leech. There's no CCTV in the corridor. All he had to do was go down to the server room and pick it up. Why else would he take thirty minutes to return to the party? It was him. It has to be him.”
“Yes, that seems the likeliest course of action for a Metropolis crime reporter,” Alfred said dryly. “Root around in corporate server farms for the hell of it.”
But, of course, by then, Bruce had long stopped listening.
“You look like shit,” Lois remarked bluntly the next day, but that was Lois lane for you: great on the eyes, terrible on the ego. Clark sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. Her eyes widened. “Whoa, okay, what's up? Is this, you know, big blue stuff?”
Clark huffed a laugh. “I wish.”
She came around to his cubicle and perched on the edge of his desk. “Come on. Get it off your chest.”
“I--made a mistake.”
“Yeah?”
“Last night, at the party. I kind of. There was this guy.” Best not to mention Wayne, or Lois would bite his head off. “We--uh. We had sex?”
“You don't sound sure.”
“No, I mean we did. It's just.” he looked around. No one was listening, but he pitched his voice lower anyway. “I didn't use protection?”
“And did he…”
“Mm.”
Lois’ eyes were huge. “Oh Clark. God damn it, how could you?”
“I… wasn't thinking straight.”
“No shit you weren't. Is that all it takes? The… the addiction? Just one time?”
Clark was blushing furiously, but it was--such a relief, having someone who knew, even if it was the most horrifyingly embarrassing thing ever. “I… think so? I don't really have any kind of sample size to work off, here.”
“Well, maybe it doesn't,” Lois said, frowning. “Maybe it takes more than one time. I mean, back in Smallville, when you and Lana were, you know, maybe it was after the fourth time. Or the fifth, that it started for her. You don't know!”
No. All Clark knew was they had broken up and she had developed a heroin dependency to deal with the trauma of being cut off from--from, lets face it, Clark’s dick, and gotten in with some terrible people, and then gotten 50 years for possession with intent. Three years after they broke up, and she had gotten sent to federal prison.
And then Danny, in college, who had tried to jump off a building after their breakup, and Maya from his time at the Daily Star, who had gone on prescription opioids and nearly killed her damn self too.
It really made you reevaluate the importance of safe sex. Very safe sex. Like, two condoms and spermicide, sex.
“Right, yeah, I guess that's possible.” He shrugged. There was a tiny little ember of hope flickering in his chest. Clark was studiously ignoring it. Good things didn't just happen like that, not to him. “I guess we’ll know that's true, that he’s safe, if he doesn't call--”
The phone on his desk rang.
“How about La Terraza?” Bruce suggested. His voice sounded even better on the phone. Clark was closing his eyes, letting it slide over him. “The new Italian thing on 8th. Dinner’s on me, of course.”
“I can't, Mr. Wayne, there are ethical standards to be considered here. I can't let you pay for the meal.”
“And ethical standards, those are where you draw the line, yes?” Wayne’s voice was doing something--terrible, completely illegal. Clark was trying to force back a smile.
“Mr. Wayne,” he reproved quietly, and heard a dark, warm chuckle trickle down from the other end of the line.
“Alright, alright. Don't bust my balls. How about my place? I have a little flat on the corner of Westbrook and Mall.” Clark wondered what fit Wayne’s idea of ‘little’. “I’ll even make dinner myself.”
Clark shook his head. “It doesn't count if all you do is stick it in a microwave, Mr. Wayne.” There was a smile still tugging at his lips. “But I’ll see you at seven.”
“Yes, you will.” The line went dead, and Clark looked up. Lois was staring at him. Her mouth was hanging open, in a dead-on impression of a goldfish.
“What?” he asked her, squirming in his chair like a guilty kid.
Her eyes turned to slits. “Son of a bitch,” she swore. “You like him.”
“You're early,” Bruce remarks, surprised, when he opens the door.
Clark smiles sheepishly, and steps inside. “It looked like it was going to rain, so…”
Bruce leads him into the--oh look, it's a penthouse. ‘A little flat,’ for the love of god.
“Did you walk here?” Bruce asks over his shoulder, like the idea is anathema to him. “Jesus, Kent, I would've sent a car.”
Clark shrugged. “I like walking.” He did like walking--but he had flown here. The idea of spending twenty minutes, thinking about going to Bruce’s flat, made him want to peel out of his skin. “Something smells good.”
They entered the kitchen, a massive chrome and white tile and granite affair that ma would have been horrified by. Bruce shot him a look. “There's no need to sound quite so surprised. Pick a wine from the fridge, would you?”
Clark smiled faintly at Bruce’s back. There was something… alarmingly domestic about the whole situation. It didn't feel like an interview, it felt like--like he was coming h—
“What are we having?” Clark asked, to stop his brain from entering stupid, forbidden territory.
“Veal.”
He opened the fridge--double-door, brushed steel, six ice settings, probably cost as much as a small European car--and picked something red with a nice label. It's not like Bruce was going to have bad wines.
Bruce glanced at the bottle. “Malbec,” he murmured. “Well done.” he held out a ladle, dripping with sauce. “Here,” he said briskly. “Taste. I think it needs something.”
Clark drew his tongue along the cold spoon, and closed his eyes, rich, warm flavors exploding on his tongue. “Holy god.” Bruce inhaled sharply. Clark could hear his heartbeat accelerate. He opened his eyes. “You can cook,” he murmured wonderingly.
Bruce rolled his eyes and looked away. His heart was still pounding, but his voice was smooth. Bruce Wayne was apparently a very good actor. “Again with the surprise. Disappointed I’m not just a pretty face, Kent?”
“I never thought you were.”
That wasn't true, precisely. Clark had thought Bruce Wayne was basically this fantastically lucky moron, and an asshole to boot, except then--that night happened. It had set off some alarms.
And then Bruce called, and set off even more alarms, and Clark went digging through the Planet's archives about Bruce Wayne, tabling the Bat articles for a while. He didn't have to dig very far, though--he hit paydirt at the six month mark.
The day of Black Zero.
Apparently there had been a sudden slew of social media postings about Bruce Wayne, photos and blurry video, first hand accounts from survivors, testimonials from first responders.
He pulled me out.
He saved my son.
He gave my wife CPR.
He saved me.
He saved us.
A hero.
A hero.
An angel.
A hero.
Clark recognized the tone of the posts--it was how folks spoke about Superman.
It had been one of Vikram’s pieces, a web exclusive for the Planet's site--Clark found the kid at lunch, in the break room, and asked him why the article had been back-burnered.
“You don't know?” Vik asked, blinking owlishly. “Dude, he like, abducted the entire Bolshoi Ballet company and fucked off to the Amalfi coast for a whole week. Nobody was gonna believe the same guy had been walking through the goddamn wreckage, saving lives and getting his hands dirty, after he pulled that stunt.” Vik looked down, and fiddled with the tab of his coke can. “It's weird man. Mr. White says I’m nuts, but it's like--like he didn't want us publishing that article you know? Like he knew, and-- Anyway. Maybe I’m paranoid. My mom says I am.”
Clark had walked away from that conversation shaken, a drumbeat in his head that told him he had misjudged Bruce Wayne pretty goddamn severely.
So he looked at Wayne, and he said, “I never thought you were,” even though it wasn't strictly the truth. Wayne looked up sharply at that. Clark’s voice was maybe softer than it should have been. “Although,” he added with a smile, “it is a very nice face.”
“Jesus, Kent.” There were long fingers in his belt loops, reeling him in. Wayne’s eyebrow was arched, but his eyes were on Clark’s mouth. “Don't go soft on me, now.”
“No worries there,” he replied, and tipped his chin up, and brushed their lips together.
Clark isn't even really surprised when they end up abandoning dinner for Wayne’s bedroom--and what a bed it is, bigger than a California king, the mattress plush and firm all at once, and Wayne, pinning Clark’s wrists above his head, trying to suck a bruise into his neck, their bare cocks rubbing together, bright white sparks dancing behind his eyelids, as his hips jerked off the mattress, grinding against that deliciously thick cock.
“You do that--nngh, fuck--you do that any longer, and I’m going to come,” Clark gasps, and a tight sharp heat clenches around the base of his cock. It's not enough to stop him, of course, but Wayne is looking at him, like that, and Clark forces himself to breathe. “What? What?”
His free hand is sliding along Clark's cock now, squeezing his balls and stroking the fragile, hot silk skin behind, and then rubbing around the perineum.
“Oh,” Clark gasps, and feels the tip of a hot, dry finger slip past the rim. His eyes flutter shut. “Oh, god yes.”
There's no real way to stretch him, Clark knows. The muscle doesn't really work that way--doesn't loosen like a human’s would. But he can take it, can take three fingers and a vibe, has tried it before, made sure, just in case.
College was… very educational, in more ways than one.
“Just do it,” he’s saying now, three of Wayne’s fingers knuckle deep inside him, rubbing his prostate, making his cock spurt precome all over his goddamn stomach, making white bolts of lightning crackle cross his skin. Clark feels--strung out, laid apart, the way a flight to Pluto sometimes makes him feel, drawn thin and sharp, too close to his own skin. “Come on,” he’s begging, bearing down on Bruce's fingers, “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me--”
The fingers pull out gently and Clark's breathing turns harsh, wrecked. “Easy,” Wayne is muttering, positioning himself at the tight pucker, lube dripping off his cock. “Easy, Clark,” rubbing his sides like he would a frightened animal’s, “easy.”
And then he was sinking in, and it was Bruce who was gripping Clark’s hips so tightly it should have bruised, who was groaning, low and harsh and deep, reverberating in that massive, vaulted chest. “Jesus, Jesus, how are you so--Christ, you're so tight, Clark, oh god--”
His thrusts started deep and hard and quick and Clark was dripping with how good it was, nailing his prostate on every stroke, Wayne breathing hard and hot, Clark’s ankles locked at the small of his back, hands skating down his spine, over those slabs of pure, hewn muscle.
He was saying something, Wayne was muttering something in his ear, but Clark could only catch drifts of it--‘fuck, fuck, you’re so hot, so hot, you take it so good, I’m going fuck you apart, going to wreck you, that's it, do you like it’--a litany of praise and filth that had him ratcheting higher and faster than anything else, that had his balls tightening and his spine arching off the bed, digging his hands into Wayne’s ass, just holding him there, clamping around that massive, brutal cock as he came and came.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the man almost trembling, shaking with the effort to stay still. He was still so hard, and it would have hurt, if Clark had been--
Wayne’s eyes were fixed on his chest, on the streaks of come dripping down his pecs. He dragged his hand through the mess, coating his palm, and then raised it to his mouth, and-
And-
Licked.
Clark felt it rush to his groin, the sight of it, made a low weak sound in his throat when he saw Bruce suck a long finger into his mouth. He thrust, savagely, once, twice, dragging Clark’s mouth up to his, biting into his lip, his mouth tasting of Clark’s come, and he came, shuddering with orgasm, whispering his name.
They reached for each other throughout the night. It wasn't always Bruce--Clark sought his touch just as often. Under the sheets, in the dark, it was easy to push the guilt away, to find the scars knitted over that beautiful body, to put his mouth over every old hurt, to hear Bruce say his name, again and again, until they were sweat-slick, shaking apart in each other's arms.
“So. Get anything good from Wayne?” Lois asked him the next day.
Clark tensed.
I got his number, he thought of telling her. He thought of the look in her eyes, the disappointment.
You have to stop, she would say, and she would be right. You need to stop doing this to him, it's wrong. It's cruel—you're supposed to help people, you're supposed to protect them. How can you. How can you do this to him.
Clark thought about that too.
Thought about never seeing Bruce again. Thought about never touching him, never hearing that low, amused laugh, never kissing that smirk away. Thought about the way he looked, at night, lax, the lines of his face chased away. The way he had touched Clark in the morning, sleep-soft kisses in the dim glow of sunrise, lazily making out for long, golden, sun-drenched minutes.
Something howled in his chest at the thought, and Clark shut his eyes.
“Nah,” he said. “Interview was a bust.” that was technically not false. They hadn't done much interviewing, last night. “Didn't get anything from Wayne.”
“So Mr. Kent didn't take the leech,” Alfred concluded. There was an edge to his voice. “You discussed this at length, I assume?”
They had all the CCTV footage playing on loop. Again.
“I’m not sure what you're implying, Alfred.”
His temples were throbbing and there was a sick low pulse in his gut. His fingers trembled when he tried to type, and his knee was screaming at him like a motherfucker, like it was storm season in Gotham.
“You know exactly what I’m implying, Master Bruce,” Alfred replied pertly.
“He didn't take it. I checked his flat and his office. He’s clean.” Bruce found a bottle of Advil and knocked back two, dry swallowing the pills. “You're right. Maybe the guest list will net us something.”
“Clark? Claa-aark.”
He blinks. There’s sunlight streaming in from the west windows, and it illuminates Lois’ face in bright gold. Clark tries to focus.
“Earth to Clark!” she’s saying, with a twinkle in her eye, and he glares.
“Haha. Real funny. John Mulaney better watch out.”
She beams at him. “Come on, you're the only one I can do that joke with!”
“Yeah, yeah. What's up?”
“Doesn't listen to a damn thing I say,” she muttered off to the side, and then her smile turns wry, too knowing. “You're a thousand miles away today, huh?”
Clark frowns. “Okay, seriously Lo--” and she laughs.
“That was the last one, I promise,” she's saying, taking up her perch on the edge of Clark’s desk as usual. “Where's your head at anyway?”
“Oh just…” Every time he closes his eyes, his senses flare out like static--expanding and expanding until all the world’s noise is crashing down against him, like a wall, an unstoppable force, trying to pound him into the dirt, destroy every atom of his-- “A headache.”
“Didn't know you could get those,” Lois murmurs. “Has this happened before?”
Clark shook his head, and then winced. God, that hurt. “Never.”
“Diana Prince. You have something of mine.”
She arched a perfect eyebrow at Bruce. “Is it considered stealing when you take it from a--oh my god. Mr. Wayne?”
Bruce stumbled.
When he blinked again, she was gripping his arm, and her dark eyes were wide with alarm. “Mr. Wayne, are you alright?”
Bruce shivered. There was a cold sweat erupting at the back of his neck, over his forehead, his upper lip. He looked up, and Diana had doubled, yawed sharply to the right. Her arm was under his, around his waist; somehow, Bruce was aware that this woman was--holding him up, walking him to the exit, effortlessly, as if he wasn't twice her weight.
“Hey, breathe, just breathe,” she said, when they were out, in the cold clear night air. Bruce shivered again, violently, and took great lungfuls of bracing air. When he opened his eyes, he found he could stand again. “Back with us Mr. Wayne? Good. Now, what the hell just happened?”
“I don't--I don't know.”
He found the leech in his car’s glove compartment.
Clark found a text, on his way back home.
My place. 8.
—b.w.
It shouldn't have made that hot ache of fuck-god-yes coil all through his chest.
It shouldn't have--but it did.
The door was open, when Clark exited the lift, but that was hardly a security concern. It took the concierge’s key to even get to this floor, but the apartment was dark, the only light coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Metropolis’ ice-bright skyline dappling the shadows with silver light.
He followed the heartbeat to the bedroom, found Bruce in shirtsleeves and trousers, barefoot on the carpet, a half-drained glass of scotch in his hands.
Clark waited at the door--he hadn't been quiet. Bruce knew he was there. And when he turned around, Clark's jaw dropped. He was pale, grey shadows under his eyes, stubble making his face more gaunt, more sharply defined. Bloodshot eyes, a hard twist to his mouth.
“Jesus, Bruce.”
Bruce paused. Clark walked to him, cupped that beautiful face in his palms. He wanted to--cry, to walk away, to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness.
I’m sorry, he wanted to beg. I'm sorry, I’m sorry, I’m--
“Tell me what I can do,” he said hoarsely instead. The glass of scotch thunked from Bruce’s fingers to the ground, liquor seeping into the carpet. “Bruce, please… Tell me what to do.”
Bruce leaned forward, dropped his forehead against Clark’s. His hands were tight on Clark’s hips, his grip trembling, holding fast. “Kiss me,” Bruce whispered. “Just kiss me.”
So he did.
The phone rang in the middle of the night. Bruce startled at the sound, Clark mumbling softly in confusion. He touched his hair, smoothed it down. “It's nothing,” he whispered. “It's fine.”
Even in sleep, Clark nuzzled against his palm, threw an arm around Bruce's waist, and held on like a possessive octopus. He tapped the subdermal comm implant. It was probably safe. Clark was fast asleep.
“Alfred.”
“The decryption is nearly done.”
“That's why you called?”
“No. I was wondering if staying upright was still a cause for concern.”
“I’m fine, Alfred.” Not a lie--he really was fine. He was… wonderful, actually. Bruce stretched against the mattress, rolling his shoulders and pointing his toes. He hadn't felt so good in… forever. “I told you it would pass. It did.”
“Congratulations. Incidentally, I also ran your blood work.”
“Oh?” Damn. Why hadn't he thought of that? “Anything?”
“I'm afraid so. Among other things, your homocysteine levels are vastly elevated.”
Bruce waited. No explanation. Alfred wanted him to ask. “Like drawing blood from a rock, Jesus. All of us didn't drop out of med school.”
“Indeed. Some of us merely did so from Princeton.” Twenty years, it had been. Twenty goddamn years, and he still got his nose shoved into the carpet like a misbehaving pet. But that was Alfred for you: relentlessly competent, and hell on his ego.
“Alfred…”
“Well, Master Bruce, either you are at risk for heart disease, or you have a rare genetic disorder neither of your parents did, bless their souls, or, well. You're going through addiction. Or possibly withdrawal.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Without a baseline to compare it to, I can't tell if this is the norm, or a symptom of excitotoxicity. And quite frankly, at this point, I can't tell which would be worse.”
“Excito--I can't tell if that's a word. Alfred, I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Oh hardly, master Wayne.” And then his voice turned hard. “Which begs the question--what else are you using?”
The warm body next to him shifted. There were lips drifting along his shoulder, dark curls tickling his chin. “Bruce?” a low, sleep-soft voice mumbled. “Who're y’talkin’ to?”
Bruce ran his hand down Clark’s spine, his skin like hot silk, his body curled trustingly around Bruce’s. Would you stay if you knew who I was? What I had done?
“No one,” he replied, tapping the link closed. “Come here.”
Clark blinked, and then his mouth curved into a delicious, muzzy smile. He found his glasses and shoved them on, and then straddled Bruce in a smooth, quick move, looking delighted with himself. Bruce could already feel his cock, half hard, against his hip. “Make me.”
Bruce went home.
It was dawn by the time he reached, a warm sense of contentment persisting in his bones. But that was fine. Returning to the Work would destroy that soon enough.
Even though the fog of happiness, Bruce knew himself well enough to know that.
“Has the decryption been completed?”
“Indeed, Master Wayne. And how is young Mr. Kent doing this fine autumn morning?”
“Don't, Alfred.”
“He's not one of your hardened starlets, you know. He’s young and idealistic, and he doesn't deserve the Bruce Wayne treatment.”
“No? It sure seems like that's what he wants, though.” He sighed. There. It was gone. “Leave it be, Alfred. I need to look through the data we’ve uncovered. I owe Miss Prince a photograph.”
But he discovers… so much more.
A solution.
A fix.
Finally.
It's during the drive, chasing down the kryptonite, that it becomes unbearable. The headache, the double-vision, the nausea--Bruce can power through all that. His skin feels clammy and hot at once, his eyes feel dry, his knee is screaming.
But the noise…. The constant drill of bullets hitting the Batmobile, glancing off the forward shield, off the missile-proof glass, the judder of the wheel under his hands, vibrating in his teeth. Bruce can hear his breath sawing in his ears, can see black encroaching on his vision. Fire blooms in the distance, and the world acquired a faint, purpled haze, auroras bleeding from every edge as Bruce dodges and weaves, following the White Portuguese's precious, extraterrestrial cargo.
And then, in the warehouse, waiting for him--
Superman.
The car slams into his immovable form, goes into tailspin, ratchets hard against a wall, whipping his head sideways. The alien rips the roof of the car, titanium plating shearing like so much crumpled tinfoil in his hands.
“The Bat is dead,” he says, those merciless blue eyes raking right through his bones. “Call it a mercy,” and it takes everything in him, every second of his hard-earned training, to remain still, to breathe even.
To not blink in the face of the Devil.
Clark looks darkness in the eye, and darkness looks back.
“Tell me,” it asks, in a voice made for nightmares given form. “Do you bleed?”
The sonic boom of his liftoff hits Bruce in the chest, and he sways, lists to the side, staggering to his knees and emptying the contents of his stomach over the side of the ruined car. His mouth tastes like blood and bile when looks into the empty sky and vows, “You will.”
There’s a vial of ketamine in the belt. Direct administration. Stabbed into his thigh. The sweet fervor of release, and Bruce falls back into the mangled seat.
You will.
“What's wrong?”
It was the first question Bruce asked when he entered the penthouse--and then Clark paused.
Bruce.
When the hell had he gone from Wayne to-- Bruce?
“Clark?”
Clark realized he had been staring at--at Bruce blindly, without saying a word. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Last night was--I couldn't sleep.”
Not that Clark needed sleep.
Tell me, he heard the Bat growl again, as if he was right there, in the room with them, do you bleed.
A shiver raced down his spine, raised goosebumps on his arms. He couldn't get it out of his damn head.
Bruce walked up to him, tugged the messenger bag off his shoulder. Pushed the jacket off and down, letting it drop to the hardwood floor. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” Clark muttered.
“Anytime.”
Clark looked up at him. “You're… in a good mood.”
Bruce smirked. “Why is it that every time you say anything nice about me, it's always such a goddamn shocker?”
“Because it is.”
“Jesus, Kent, don't hold back or anything.” He frowned. “What happened to you anyway?”
Clark paused, mulling semantics for a long moment. “Can I ask you something?”
And Bruce tensed. It was like being shoved back in that corridor--feeling the first sure touch of that infamous Bruce Wayne allure. “Sure.”
“When we first met, I wanted to ask you a question.”
“About Gotham's Bat infestation. I remember.”
“Will you answer it, this time? Honestly?”
Bruce stepped back. “Can't print it now, Kent. Ethical considerations, I believe, was the phrase you used.”
Is that why you fucked me, Clark thinks abruptly. The first time, is that why.
It's almost as if Bruce can see exactly where his mind is going. The casual, easy laissez-faire on his face evaporates. “Ask me,” he says quietly. “I’ll answer as honestly as I can.”
Clark nods. Look at the ground, wonders how to phrase it. “What do you think of him? Of the Bat?”
“I think he isn't real.”
“Bruce.”
“Alright… Alright.” he rubs his brow, and then speaks again, “I think… he’s a necessary evil. I think if the system fails, it becomes necessary to stop trying to salvage the unsalvageable, and operate outside of the bounds of a law that isn't helping anyway.”
“There's people in that city that are terrified of him,” Clark argues. “I’ve seen the headlines, haven't you? Bat brand of justice. For fuck’s sake--he’s playing god.”
Something ripples across Bruce's face. Something vast and ferocious and ugly. “Playing god”, he sneers. “That's a bit rich, isn't it? Coming from a Planet reporter, when every time Superman helps a little old lady cross the road, he gets a puff piece in your human interest section.” Bruce steps closer. “You want to revile a man playing god? He’s not even a man.”
Tell me. Do you bleed?
“Do you think he bleeds?”
Clark whispers the words. They have the same effect as a gunshot.
Bruce stumbles away from him. His heart is a roar, a tsunami, a gale-force howl. “What.”
“Superman. Do you think he bleeds?”
“Clark.”
He shakes his head. “I don't--please, please can I--touch you.”
“What did that mean. What did that--do you know him. Clark, do you know him.”
The scream in his ears was growing louder and louder--he heard snatches of a ballgame in Rio, a radio playing in Brooklyn, a woman shouting in Santa Fe. A hurricane brewing off the coast of Thailand, a baby crying in Mizoram, a fire crackling on the Siberian tundra. Heartbeats and shouts and waves and music and winds and whispers and all of it screaming screaming in his head, a cacophony, a maelstrom of noise.
“Please,” he heard himself say, from far away. “It hurts.”
And Bruce strode forward, the three steps between them, and took his face between his hands, and kissed his open mouth--and Clark could finally breathe.
“Your glasses,” Bruce said. They were both staring at the ceiling, trying to catch their breath. Well, Clark wasn't. Clark was just. Basking. “They aren't prescription.”
All right.
Not basking.
He got up, hands on the mattress, feet on the floor, back to Bruce. “Most people don't notice.”
“I’m not most people,” came the growl from behind him, and Clark was able, almost, to hear the Bat in his voice.
“No,” he agreed. “You aren't.” Most people don't torture, and then sleep well at night.
Clark had looked into the darkness. The darkness had looked back.
And it had vowed to kill him.
“This thing,” Bruce said harshly. “Between us. What have you. What did you do to me.”
“I didn't. I don't--know.”
“Bullshit.”
It's not like they gave me a fucking manual, he wants to snap. It's not like Bruce will believe him.
“It's happening to me too, if that helps. I know you're planning to--to kill me--so if you want to know: I’ll be weakest whenever you're weakest.” Clark smiled at the carpet. There was almost a kind of peace in this: he would die at Bruce's hand. And Bruce would continue to protect the world. Everyone he loved would always be safe. “It's the perfect catch 22. See you when I see you, Bats. For what it's worth…. I would have given anything to do this the ordinary way.”
The next day, Wallace O’Keefe’s bomb exploded. Superman went into exile.
In Metropolis, Clark Kent didn't turn up at the Daily Planet.
Alfred looked at him steadily. “So he is a man. Somebody’s son.”
Bruce looked away. “This changes nothing. We need to get to work.”
By the fifth day, the tremors were uncontrollable.
The fatigue was a black, feral thing, clawed and spitting, dragging him under. There was lidocaine in his knee, and epinephrine to keep him awake, four Advil down and six cups of coffee. His body was a juddering, unraveling mass of nerves; after Bruce vomited blood into the floor in the Cave, in the middle of training, he knew he wouldn't survive this long enough to do his fucking job.
So he gritted his teeth, climbed into the ‘Wing, programmed a course to Metropolis. Thirty minutes later, he stumbled into the penthouse, and--
Found Clark waiting.
Clark-- the alien-- it looked as bad as he did, which was some thin comfort. Its hands were fisted at its side, and his--its feet were six inches off the ground.
No more masks, then.
“Bruce,” he--it--oh what was the fucking point--he said. “Can I--Are you--”
“Do it,” Bruce said. “Fix this.”
And Clark surged forward, cape flaring out behind him, and cupped Bruce’s face, and kissed him, warm and heady, like the dawn of a summer day.
His hands were gentle. His lips were soft.
There was an ache in Bruce’s chest, that felt like his heart was splintering to pieces.
It was like that first night. They touched for ages, kissing and kissing until his mouth hurt, careful with their hands, like this was all new, uncharted territory.
Afterwards, they lay still and quiet. Clark’s head was pillowed on Bruce's arm. Their feet were tangled together. Metropolis was a glittering jewel in the night, and the light in the room was all shades of silver-grey.
“Tell me,” Bruce said. Stop talking. You have a mission. Stop talking. “Tell me about Black-Zero.”
Clark shifted, levered up on a forearm, looking at Bruce. Bruce didn't look back.
“Why?” Clark asked.
“Because I want to understand. I want to understand what would make… somethi--someone like you fight for us.”
“Something?” Clark said quietly.
“Someone.”
“Why do you do it?”
“Because I have to,” Bruce replied. “And because I can.”
Clark nodded. He was touching Bruce's chest now, drawing idle patterns across all that beautiful, scarred muscle. “To those to whom much is given, of them, much shall be required.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow at Clark. His eyes were… astonishingly blue. “I thought Kansas was outside the Bible belt.”
Clark grinned. “You know it isn't. But alright. How about, with great power comes--”
“Shut up. Okay.” He didn't look away. “Tell me about Black Zero.”
“Why, Bruce? What’s changed?”
Men fall from the sky. The gods hurl thunderbolts. Innocents die.
Everything has changed.
“Because… because I need to understand. Something's about to happen--can't you feel it?”
When it happened, Clark wasn't weak from a fight. He slammed the kryptonite spear through Zod's heart, braced against that mangled chest, and then threw himself backwards, ten, twenty, fifty miles through the air, hitting the waters of the bay like a goddamn freighter, skidding across the surface, long, white furrows of foam bubbling in his wake.
On the island, Zod roared in agony, loud enough the shake the fire-torn skies.
He swung.
He missed.
He died.
“It's stopped.”
Clark nosed along Bruce’s throat, kissed the warm line of a tendon. Bruce's hand was stroking his back, and every line of his beautiful body was lax and heavy and all for Clark, spread out like a feast.
“What's stopped?” he murmured.
Bruce was still a little loose, from last night. Clark wanted to put his mouth there, just behind those heavy balls, wanted to ease him open, wanted the sweet clench of his hole around a few fingers, wanted to watch Bruce harden while sitting on his cock, wanted to hear the sounds he made when was on the edge--
“The withdrawal symptoms.”
Clark pulled back. “Withdrawal? What withdrawal?”
“I was in Malaysia for a week. And you were with that group in Ecuador. Didn't you worry? That it would come back? The--the--how it was, before?”
Clark was holding him tighter, as if remembering. “Yeah.”
“But it didn't.”
“No… it didn't, at that.” There was a heavy, roiling sensation in gut, a sea at storm. His eyes stung. Clark rolled away from Bruce, pulled his knees to his chest. “So it's done, then.”
“Has this happened, before?”
“What?”
“You've… been in relationships in the past, haven't you?”
“Sure.”
“Lana, Danny and Maya.”
Clark stiffened. “Of fucking course you know.” His voice was a whipcrack.
“You were biologically compelling me to fuck you. For months. Not once did you feel obliged to tell me what was going to happen to me, not once. Glass houses, Kent.”
Clark deflates.
There's a word Bruce isn't saying here: a word involving compulsion and the absence of real consent. Clark is… desperately grateful for it.
“They all… recovered,” he says instead. “That's not any kind of defense, please understand. I didn't know what was happening until Maya. And when I realized….”
“You didn't see anyone for years,” Bruce finishes.
Clark nods.
“Until me.” His voice is quiet, a little hot. It makes something slither up his spine, a kind of nerve-tingling desire.
“Until you.” Clark pauses, and then goes on, “Lana ratted out a supplier and got her sentence cut short. She runs a halfway house for women in ‘Frisco now. After Danny’s suicide attempt, he changed his major to psychology. He’s been working as a counselor in a prep school in Vermont for a few years. And Maya's married. Happily. Banker in New York. Two kids, McMansion in the suburbs, the works. She still goes to AA. Nine years sober.”
“But only after you left. They only got better after you left.”
Clark laughed. It was a hollow sound, ringing with sadness. “We just went in the wrong order, didn't we?” No reply. “I guess that's my cue.”
His vision blurred. Something wet splashed against his knee. “I just--” He cleared his throat. “I just want you to know, that if there's ever anything you need from me--it won't change--I’ll always be-- Fighting beside you and Diana was an--an honor that I will never-- I could never even have dreamt of--that is--”
He choked.
Bruce was silent.
“You know how I feel about you. I guess… I guess that's all I wanted to say. Goodbye, Bruce.”
Clark exhaled, and grabbed his clothes. He was a blur through the window, and gone in the blink of an eye.
Six hours later, his phone pinged. He pulled it out of his jeans pocket, juggling his keys and his laptop case in the other hand, along with a hot styrofoam cup from the cart downstairs.
Dinner. 8.
—b.w.
Clark smiled, sipped his coffee, and pushed open the door to the Daily Planet. From the other end of the bullpen, Lois waved. Perry White was roaring across the room at Jimmy. A Page 3 intern was crying beside the photocopier.
Somewhere out there, there was a boy whose body was more metal than flesh, a man who could breathe underwater, a woman who had lived a thousand years, a kid who ran faster than even he did.
The sun was streaming through the windows, golden, beautiful. There was work to be done.
He typed out a reply.
I’ll pick up dessert.
See you at home.
It was starting to look like a wonderful day.