agoodyarn | for frightening: Goddammit Bruce

There are very few people who can enter a room with a sleeping Bruce Wayne and continue to be in a room with a sleeping Bruce Wayne, instead of an instantly awake and alert even though he still looks asleep Bruce Wayne. There are even fewer people who can do that and get into the Cave. Obviously, Clark is one of them. He doesn't wake up until he's touched, but he doesn't startle or protest - he remains still and pliant (and for a single heartbeat, disoriented with the sudden change in gravity as he comes out of being dead asleep).

It takes him two seconds to be fully awake and another two to know what's happening. He doesn't struggle. He waits for Clark to be mid-step, digs his knee into his chest, and pries himself away-- he knows Superman will relent, because Bruce is strong enough to seriously injure himself against the Kryptonian's strength if he doesn't, and Clark won't let him be hurt that way.

He'd have preferred not to be quite this exhausted, though, because he ends up half-stumbling back on the stairs and-- sits. Does not fall. He sits for a half-moment, gritting his teeth, then gracefully stands back up. "That," he says, in a voice that's rough more from tiredness than Batman's intimidation, "was extremely rude."

He is absolutely right. Clark would never allow Bruce to be hurt by his hand if he could help it, and this time is no different. That doesn't mean he doesn't make a sound very much like a growl when it happens, though.

Normally, an assertion of rudeness would at least get a sheepish sigh. Not today. Oh no. He would have been annoyed before they started... whatever the hell they're doing that doesn't have a name yet. Because teammates utilize communication skills at least to the level of a high school student. And really, that's the main complaint. Clark's own personal irritation given their... relationship and the subsequent choice by Bruce to utterly ignore him for a week... it really just makes him less charitable. Clark's awful at being mad on his own behalf, after all.

But he had a valid complaint. And oh but he was going to ride that horse until it dropped out from under him.

"Rude? Really?" he asks with wide eyes and mock sincerity, "I was just responding appropriately. What with you behaving like a fussy toddler the last week."

Huh. Interesting. He expected Clark might be irritated, but he did not anticipate the level of genuine anger he's sensing - while an admittedly low one (for Bruce's standards), it's still somewhat rare from the other man. For a long moment he's quiet, just staring at him, because Bruce really and truly has the audacity to not understand what the big deal is.

"How was I behaving like 'a fussy toddler'?" he asks, inflection deadpan. It's his curiosity more than anything that prevents him from just telling Clark to leave. Or-- oh right, they're kind of dating, or something, telling him to leave without talking would be unnecessarily cold. Probably. But seriously, picking him up like that was rude.

(Even in his own head, Bruce notes to himself that having an 'oh, right' moment about that is not up to par. He's really tired. It takes him longer than he'd like to remember exactly what he'd been doing when he fell asleep.)

The first thing to come out of him is a low, angry "Don't."

But Clark has a long and storied history of being the one to bend, the tolerant one, of sucking up indignity and treading through it because needs must. Needs must when you have a job to do. Needs must when you have an alter ego to hide. Needs must when you love people and they insist on being monumentally frustrating.

He needs a deep breath in and he takes it, rubbing at his temple as if he had a headache. And he could swear he does. He literally, scientifically, cannot get them but he could SWEAR he does.

"Bruce," he breathes out, feels some of his anger go with it. "When someone calls you or texts you or emails you for over a week with no response, they get concerned. When the person they're contacting is a masked vigilante who regularly goes out and gets shot at every night, that goes double. When, about halfway through the week, it becomes abundantly clear that you were seeing those messages and just brushing them off instead of, say, shooting back a quick message that you're fine but busy, some of that concern turns into anger."

He lets that hang in the air before--

"And when several members of the Justice League approach me to come check on you, that's when the words 'fussy toddler' come into play because you literally put all of us into a tizzy because you couldn't be bothered to send me a text."

Yes, he could have checked with Barbara. Yes, he could have checked with Tim. Yes, Bruce's heartbeat had been a constant fixture in his ears for over ten years, a sound that he always heard.

That did not change the fact that Bruce had been an ass. And that Clark, his teammate primarily, something else in the romantic realm secondarily, was not about to let it pass without saying something.

Edited (ugggh sorry *facepalm*) 2015-11-09 04:43 (UTC)

Bruce waits. He listens. He does not ask Are you done? because he senses that would only piss Clark off further, though part of him wants to anyway. He also half wants to say I'm sorry I put the most powerful men and women on the planet into a tizzy because I didn't text you back, because it's baffling to him that after all these years, these people are so sensitive about him.

A quiet moment passes to ensure that Clark is done without Bruce having to say something else asinine. Finally: "I was busy."

Ah.

"It seemed like a waste of everyone's time - yours included - to respond with 'busy, can't'. You know when we get slammed here I barely have time to breathe." I'm busy leads to questions like 'Do you need any help', 'Is there anything I can do', 'Are you okay', which suck up more time and just make people (needlessly) worried when they shouldn't be, because Bruce has been doing this for longer than any of them knew he existed.

"I wasn't brushing you off. I read everything."

Edited (and now it is my turn for typos ) 2015-11-09 04:55 (UTC)

Clark takes in the answer, and then he's rubbing his face with one hand and muttering in Kryptonese. He's muttering in Kryptonese because that's what he does when he's annoyed to this level and can't entirely internalize. The problem with this being that of the two people who speak the language other than him, one of them is standing in front of him.

...not that there's anything useful to be gleaned from his words. That text with the acid and the flipping tables, however, is tame compared to the kind of sailor's language he's letting slip right now.

Another breath and he's collected.

"Bruce, reading everything and not answering is, in fact, the definition of brushing me off. And if you were in such a continual state of business the entire week long that you couldn't take the ten seconds it would require to dictate a text in return, then that seems to me like an occasion when you should be requesting assistance. So... which was it?"

Arms are crossed.

"Or" he said with sudden inspiration, leaning in a little, "let's put it this way: if you called on me for something and I didn't answer you for a week, what would be your response? Your honest response?"

...he almost wonders if Bruce has ever considered that idea. Because it is literally something that has never happened.

Edited (somehow this got cut off) 2015-11-09 05:09 (UTC)

Bruce's eyes narrow. He's not sure if Clark is mad enough to be swearing, or mad enough to be swearing and forgetting things. Either way, that comes up as extremely mad. He takes note of it, factors it into his responses.

"I have help here," he points out, somewhat irritably, in Kryptonese. Which Clark taught him. Calm down, Kal, it's still Bruce, it's still someone who does understand you despite all his bullshit. Then he exhales. Not quite a sigh, but a release of something. Defensiveness, maybe. He's fully aware Clark's never done it to him, but that's different. He only calls when it's vital - sometimes he doesn't, and just leaves things to rot until people pry it out of him. It's an imbalanced comparison.

"If it was an emergency, I would have found you. If it wasn't an emergency, I'd have checked on you through the Watchtower. If I just wanted to see you.. I'd sit in your apartment for a bit when you weren't there. Then I'd leave, so I wouldn't distract you."

It's not unlike chewing rusted nails to admit that last part. As though maybe he's actually done it before ... but it'd have to have been before they began this thing between them. He certainly hasn't had the time to do it since, especially not with how painstaking he'd have to be not to leave any evidence.

He opens his mouth and he'd like to say that he had answers for everything Bruce had said, but he can't. Because literally everything is blasted out of his mind by the last two sentences. It's so... ridiculous. The image of the Batman sitting in his homey little apartment. His mind is taken up with whether Bruce would sit on his couch and take in the Monarchs pennant on one side of his minuscule television opposite the Grey Ghost poster. Or would he sit in the chair Clark wrote in all the time, the one near the window in the living room? Would he look through the fridge, see if he was eating well enough? Check his mail and his bills to make sure that he's not running too lean taking care of his own needs as well as a good portion of the farm?

It's also incredibly sad. Why sit in his empty apartment? Why not call him? Why not ask him to watch a movie or play a game or-- anything? Why sit in his empty apartment while he was out and not--

Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit.

"If you just wanted to see me," he says, slow and careful and with all of the wind knocked out of him, all of it, "why didn't you just say so?"

Clark will never understand. Clark will never understand how Bruce can so... criminally undervalue himself. His company. His companionship. For goodness sake, despite the fact that he'll rib the man for literally anything else, Bruce's mortality is the ultimate Do Not Fly zone because there is absolutely nothing funny about that idea to Clark. Clark is already bracing for the day he loses Bruce. And he already knows it won't help a damn thing when it happens. And Bruce thinks he has to sit in his apartment while Clark is out instead of asking for a piece of his time? Does he not realize he's important?

He doesn't realize he's important.

"You really have no idea how important you are, do you?" is all he can say after all that, and it's airy and soft and full of a terrible kind of awe.

The ego that fuels Batman is monstrous, and even if it wasn't, Bruce Wayne remains the richest man on the planet despite hemorrhaging cash nonstop into philanthropic ventures. His list of achievements in and out of the mask is staggering, made all the more mind-blowing by virtue of being one mortal man. He is very aware of how important he is in the grand scheme of things. He's made himself this way.

Being important to Clark personally is another matter entirely.

That look on the alien's face makes him drop his own gaze in a kneejerk reflex. This is not where he expected the conversation to go-- it's difficult (extremely difficult) for him to be confronted with the kind of affection Clark's been showing. How can he hear something like that and not just think Bruce was being weird and creepy? --That is, if he did it at all, which he's never going to confirm. Is it because he loves him? That word he used, when explaining what he wanted. Bruce doesn't feel worth it, especially not from Kal-El. He's going to fuck it up, because he fucks everything up. Christ. He really doesn't want to think about that right now.

"Shut up," he says, sounding lame even to himself. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed." Bruce reaches out and grabs Clark's hand, using the kind of grip that says he expects the other man to play along and let himself be dragged, and heads up the stairs.

Oh, the second he said it, Clark knew he'd done it. Or if he hadn't done it, he'd thought about it enough to have as good as done it. That's why he does play along with it, lets Bruce drag him up.

But--

"We're talking about this later..." cause he's not shutting up on command, thank you very much. He's Superman, dammit.

Maybe he mumbles it, though. Cause he doesn't want to fight. He wants to wrap himself around Bruce and start chipping away at whatever he has to get through to convince Bruce that he's important to him. Not because he's a multibillionaire. Not because he's Batman. Because he's Bruce, his partner. Grumpy, sarcastic, overworked, deeply empathic Bruce who is literally the best man he's ever known.

Also the most stubborn.

Bruce hears him, but pretends he doesn't. He doesn't want to talk about this later, he wants to pretend this argument never happened and that Clark just waited until Bruce called him back tomorrow, then came over, and they did this without any of the weird tension that's now tangled into whatever this is.

It's not like he's kicking Clark out, though. A thing worthy of note.

His bedroom is dark, heavy curtains drawn with no light leaking through. It could well be night, from in here, and Bruce drags his shirt off over his head as soon as the door's closed behind them. He leaves his underwear on and that's all, the thin insulating clothing he wears beneath his armor discarded without care. "Come here," he says firmly as he crawls into bed. If Clark doesn't want to shut up on command, maybe he'll do this.

Edited (phrasing ) 2015-11-09 07:03 (UTC)

Clark notes it.

Clark doesn't immediately come, because there's some things he has to do first, like pull off his costume. He doesn't do it at superspeed, takes the time to pull off the cape, fold it. Tug off the top portion, push off the boots and the leggings. Those he leaves on the floor in a heap.

Once he's also down to his underwear, then he walks over, waiting by the bed. He's not getting into it quite yet. Not till Bruce tugs him in.

He'll listen if Bruce tells him. Here, when it comes to this, he'll do as he's asked because at least Bruce is asking. Out loud. With words. He knows that's difficult, so he has no trouble going along with it.

He's sure Clark will be able to see the eyeroll in the dark, inhuman eyesight aiding him where Bruce walks through the pitch-black room from memory. "Stop being an ass," he growls, and reaches out - with uncanny accuracy based on hearing his footsteps - and grabs Clark by the hip and pulls.

Clark is not actually being an ass and Bruce knows it, but it's easier to act like this than address anything of emotional significance. Also he really does want to get the fuck to sleep, and he wants to do it next to him, holding him or being held or whatever the other man wants. Just, come on already, Kansas.

Clark goes down easily enough, making the bed bounce a little with his weight. He's almost tempted to point out that being an ass is Bruce's job before he decides that there are better things he can do with both his mouth and his time. That's why he snakes his arms around the other man, his movements slow and meant to soothe, to send Bruce towards sleep again.

He follows that up with a couple of soft, almost reverent kisses along Bruce's shoulder before laying his head on the pillow beside him and closing his eyes. Sleep. Sleep good. They should definitely sleep.

Suddenly, this is a stranger idea than he anticipated.

Clark's skin on his for the first time, arm around him, mouth on his shoulder. Bruce is so scarred and worn that feeling someone so unblemished is surreal - Selina is as battered as he is underneath her leather, the familiarity of it consoling. This is something else, something good but so different it throws him for a loop. He huffs an exhale of some undefinable emotion and places his hand over Clark's arm, resting there.

Whatever. He'll have his existential crisis about being too dark and warped to be touching someone who's practically a god and made of sunlight after he's gotten at least four hours. Bruce evens out his breathing, and within minutes, is asleep.

(At some point, Alfred is going to poke his head in and turn Bruce's backup phone off, not in any way surprised at the company therein.)

Clark takes a little longer to drop off, since he has quite a lot of adrenaline to sort through. The drop of going from incredibly angry to incredibly... 'not angry' is about the best he can do to describe where he is now, but it's definitely an adjustment.

It helps being wrapped around Bruce. Touch is an incredibly important sense for him, keeps him grounded, tells him where he is when he can hear a billion things, smell a billion things, see so far. Wrapping his arms around Bruce is, in some ways, more comforting than any conversation. Feeling the marks against his skin, against his hands, that particularly heartbeat thunking steadily against his own...

He's out shortly after Bruce even if he might not need that sleep nearly so badly. He wakes when Alfred walks in because he can't miss the intrusion, but it's dark in here and he figures this is as good a way as any for the butler to find out. After, he drifts off again.

Congratulations on your big steel blanket, Bruce. Clark's more than a bit of a cuddler but at least he's nice and warm?

Without any beeps or alarms to wake him, Bruce sleeps for way more than four hours. It wasn't hugely considerate of him to drag Clark in with him in the middle of the afternoon - not everyone is nocturnal - so if he wants to bail (even temporarily), Bruce won't wake up surprised.

He is surprised to wake up naturally and without a headache, though. He feels curiously well-rested, which means someone turned off his alarms. Ugh. He's not annoyed at getting the sleep he needs, but now he's probably going to have to answer questions about how long he was awake in the first place. Steel blanket or not, Bruce rolls out of bed and slips away into the bathroom before he can get caught up in contemplation over Clark.

Besides, he's gross. How the other man stayed at all when he smells like he's been working for a week without pause is a mystery and a half. A shower is desperately needed.

The thing about having a sense of smell like Clark's is that you either learn to treat every smell as 'interesting' or you go slowly mad from the stink of the whole planet. Since Superman had yet to attempt to Febreeze all of eastern seaboard, it can be assumed that he'd managed to do the former.

...and he generally liked Bruce's smell. Generally. The week of hard work had pushed a little past that to where he was more able to tolerate it, but such was life.

By the time Bruce gets back from his shower, Clark is laying in the bed propped on one arm, clearly waiting for him. And regardless of what Bruce is wearing or not wearing, there's a bit of speculation in those eyes. He'd been with Lois Lane, after all. The man was not a stranger to intense arguments... or makeup sex. Which, he figures, in this case is probably going to be makeup making out at the most but still. Could be fun.

Make up for what, Clark being impatient and overstepping? --would be his petulant rejoinder to that, but they're not having this conversation out loud, and even if they were, Bruce probably wouldn't say it. Maybe. He's not apologizing, at any rate.

He's wearing a towel around his hips, another one being used to rub through his hair. He adjusts the lighting in the room from a panel outside the bathroom door, raising it to a dimness just enough so he can see without much strain. "I slept for over twelve hours," he says, "I can't believe you're still here." Hair sufficiently damp from drying, he tosses the towel back in the bathroom and runs a hand over it, pushing it out of his face.

Makeup festivities weren't about who was right or wrong. It was about getting past the fight. And weird backroad or not, they had gotten past it. Even if Clark pulled the topic up again, he wouldn't have nearly the heat behind him that he'd had last night. He'd figured out the missing puzzle piece. It wasn't necessary.

For his part, however, Clark shrugs,taking the opportunity to lay back then. He's smiling, just a little. Relaxed. While it wasn't the move forward he'd been expecting, it was one he had enjoyed.

"Nothing exploded or flooded or got attacked by something large and full of spines," Clark explains easily enough, "and I wasn't working today at the Planet anyway. So here I am."

He frowns a little.

"Besides, I didn't want to leave."

Why would I, is the unspoken question.

(Why indeed, with all those shirtless icons Bruce's pb doesn't have. Gosh.)

That statement is a spark against the tinder of insecurity Bruce struggled with the ~~night~~ day before - he fights internally not to remember Clark looking at him with pained eyes, wondering aloud at Bruce's opinion of himself. The other man can probably tell his brain tripped over something, since he stills in the doorway of the bathroom, neither moving nor responding for a while.

"As long as you honestly didn't have anything to attend to," he manages in an even tone, finally stepping forward to rejoin him on the bed, somewhat cagey. Whatever else, he wouldn't be able to tolerate this thing between them leading to either man slacking elsewhere.

Edited (bats are nocturnal) 2015-11-09 20:14 (UTC)

Clark actually looks mildly insulted. But only mildly.

"I should think the other week would have made it clear that I can still want to spend time with you and keep my head in the game. But no, Bruce. I'd never ignore my duties to curl up in bed with you."

Which had very little to do with Bruce and everything to do with Clark's own issues. Clark had enough guilt as it was dealing with every sparrow that fell. The idea of getting his rocks off while he was needed wasn't even horrifying. It was unthinkable. Clark sighs a little, rubs at his nose, and runs a hand through his hair.

"My bathroom could probably do with a scrub," he admits, trying to keep it light, considering, "but you do take precedence over some things..."

Look, he expects literally everyone to be more emotionally attached to things than he is - well, no, he expects literally everyone else to act on it more than he does. Bruce might be able to fool most people he knows into thinking he doesn't feel things, but internally, he feels so much that he tortures himself on an hourly basis. He just doesn't know how Clark will act, and it's in his nature to anticipate the worst from everyone.

"You could do that in ten seconds," Bruce says, "Including travel time." He kneels on the bed and crawls back, slow, laying on his stomach next to Clark. That's not an invitation to go clean his bathroom, it's pointing out that he had the time to do it while Bruce was out cold. Time management, Kent. Too late now.

He draws the fingers of one hand along Clark's shoulder, feeling how soft his skin is, knowing it's impenetrable and covering muscles no force could even dent. Feeling how warm he is. After a moment he drops his hand and looks away, the breath he lets out communicating I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

Clark is a fabulous actor, really. Or rather, he's got a fabulous act set up wherein most people have absolute no idea how much processing is going on at a given time inside his head, and a good 80% of it is dedicated to parsing the incredible amount of data he actually takes in, finding which pieces Superman could do something about, and then deciding which ones he should do something about. Because he can't be the world's savior. He can't be their magic bullet, not for every problem, not in every situation. Even if he could use every ounce of his speed, refuel himself by flying under the sun, save everyone (and he can't, in his more reasonable moments, he know he can't) it wouldn't be right. Because his job isn't to save everyone and fix everything.

It's just to show them the way and protect them long enough for them to figure things out on their own. It has to be. He's seen what happens in other worlds when it's not. He knows what he can become when even a small chunk of his humanity, when his belief in humanity, gets torn away. It's not good. It's never, ever good.

And because of that, every day, Clark wonders if his decisions, every one of them, are right. Because if he's wrong, he has to live with it. And, of course, he has to live with it when he's right too.

So maybe in that context, maybe for a man who can hear all the pain and joy in the world, maybe for him, a few hours holding onto the person he loves is absolutely worth it whether Bruce is awake or not. Maybe letting the sound of Bruce's heartbeat fill his ears, the marked and scarred skin under his fingers, that scent, sour as it was, real and visceral and his... those things are precious. Clark's. Necessary.

Far more necessary than going to clean his bathroom.

"You realize I still experience cleaning the bathroom the same as you or anyone else," Clark muses with a low snort. "It just doesn't take as much time."

But then Bruce's fingers are on him and his eyes slip closed with a soft smile of delight at the careful, exploratory touches. He opens them again when they disappear, blinking a little at Bruce's distress.

"Touch," and it's neither a command nor a request. It's just an offer. His own hand reached over to rest lightly on Bruce's shoulder. And it said: you can't screw this up, Bruce. Trust me.

Edited (...watch me spend half an hour on the tag and then forget to pick an icon.) 2015-11-09 21:46 (UTC)

It's frustrating. Bruce is not a physically affectionate person, but he is a physical person; in this situation his instinct is to touch him and instigate more. But he doesn't know what to do (emotionally or mechanically), and as Clark is well aware, Bruce hates not knowing what to do.

Bruce does trust him. Maybe more than he should. He turns his head back and looks at Clark's hand, letting the contact smooth away the frazzled bits on his nerves. It's Clark. His best friend. Who he's gone through so much with, hell and hell again, and thinking about it maybe it's actually shocking they haven't fallen together like this sooner. If the way they've operated for over a decade isn't love, what the hell is?

He moves onto his side facing Clark, and takes the hand that was on his shoulder, pressing it against the side of his neck, like he had when they were sitting on his sofa what feels like ages go already. It's gentle, not about anything but feeling him through his heartbeat and breathing.

for frightening: Goddammit Bruce

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