Archive of Our Own

“You look horrible,” Bruce observes, earning himself a sigh from Clark.

Bruce is aware that his attention is more critical than kind right now, but he also hasn’t slept in roughly fifty hours, he’s been fighting disgusting earth-core monsters non-stop during that time, and every inch of his body feels like it’s been shredded to wet paper.

Of course, it doesn’t help things that Clark doesn’t look any better than he feels.

Being that deep in the Earth for that long has deprived him of so much yellow sunlight. Bruce isn’t lying when he says he looks horrible; he doesn’t need to stroke his ego and tell him he’s still pretty— he’s always pretty, and Bruce is certain he knows it— but he also looks exhausted, worn, drained. All of his energy was gone half a day ago; he’s running on fumes as if he’s as human as the rest of them.

“Yeah,” Clark sighs, rubbing at his eye with a fist. He yawns like he’s an overgrown puppy. Bruce blames his own fatigue on the fact that his stupid heart skips a beat. “Because you’re looking healthy and well-rested—”

“Superm—”

“And just fresh as a daisy,” Clark continues, uninhibited.

All the while, he doesn’t stop moving forwards, striding for the showers at the northeast corner of the Hall of Justice. It makes sense, obviously, going there and— and scrubbing the events of the last few days off of them, the layers of mud and blood and gunk and grime, before they go their separate ways to sleep this off. Likely, in Clark’s case, he’d already be zipping off to the Fortress if he had enough energy left in him to do so.

Watching Clark tug at his collar, preparing to start stripping off the suit so he can wash in the communal space, Bruce feels a spike of unease rush through him.

“Wait,” he says on instinct, and Clark comes to an abrupt halt.

For all he’s exhausted, he’s also already on alert, trusting Bruce enough that he’s backing up towards his side and asking, “What, what is it? What’d you see?”

Bruce takes a moment to process why his senses are prickling. When he parses the reason, he sighs, rubbing at his own eyes through the cowl. Mostly, he only succeeds in smearing the remains of his makeup into them, burning through the tiny veins in his eyeballs.

“Nothing,” he tells him.

“No, what?” Clark asks. Sleepy puppy, dog with a bone— “You sounded upset, B.”

Another ridiculous roll of Bruce’s heart. “It’s just been a long few days. I’m going back to Gotham.”

“What, aren’t you going to shower first?” Clark asks, but Bruce is already backing up, turning around, beginning to stride away. He should know better— obviously, he should know better— but there are several reasons he’s not operating at full capacity right now, and so there’s still a moment of surprise when Clark is suddenly there in front of him, where before there had only been empty air in the darkened Hall lobby. “You’re just going to leave?”

Kicked puppy, Bruce’s brain helpfully supplies, looking over Clark’s downcast, pathetic expression, like Bruce said he was going to kill Clark’s whole family rather than just go home.

But then—

Bruce actually looks Clark over: the shredded tears in his suit, the few bruises he’s still maintained while he can’t get into the sunlight to heal, the sallow paleness of his skin, the slump to his broad shoulders, the grease in his hair, the bags under his eyes, the miserable expression of rejection on his perfectly exhausted face.

He looks as bad as Bruce feels.

And Bruce feels like he’d rather not be alone.

Maybe he doesn’t have a filter because of how tired he is, his mind too chemically addled to properly stop and think. Maybe he wants to keep an eye on Clark, make sure Superman heals and recovers fully, rather than have him shower here at the Hall and send him on his way. Maybe—

Maybe he doesn’t want to be apart from him, and maybe he wants to take care of him, and maybe he wants to be taken care of by him, and maybe he’s just drained enough and just foolish enough and just good enough at making up excuses that this was going to be inevitable anyway. 

Whatever reason it is— whatever combination of reasons, most likely— the outcome is the same.

“Come home with me,” Bruce offers.

Clark visibly straightens, like he’s becoming an exclamation point. “What?”

Bruce is all tactics, all precision, all chess moves, thinking twelve steps ahead so he can try and get what he wants. He might be clumsy right now, but his clumsy is still a more functional level of operation than most people’s top form.

So, obviously, it’s purely strategic, practical, and wise of him to repeat, “Come home with me. Let me—” He swallows, thick, the last word catching, and Clark’s eyes track the movement of his throat. Hell, he can probably see him swallow, a thought that makes Bruce prickle all over. “We don’t have to— to do anything. Just— To wash up, and sleep.”

For a long moment, Clark evaluates him, as if he’s studying him. It can be easy, sometimes, for Bruce to forget that other people can be just as observant as he’s capable of being.

He never makes the mistake of forgetting Clark is, though. Not anymore.

“You want me to come back to—” Clark stops himself short with a tic of his jaw, just short of what Bruce can only assume would be, ‘the Manor?’, and so he nods. “Really? Tonight? Right now?”

“Yes,” Bruce answers.

“You don’t want to go on patrol?” Clark asks.

“I’d be useless right now,” Bruce tells him. “I’m not about to slip up because of it.”

Clark stares at him for another second.

Then, his whole face lights up.

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees, eager. Running his hand back through his hair, he disrupts the flattened mess of curls, making them stick up every which way instead before falling back down. “You’ve probably got much comfier beds than this place, anyway. And way nicer soap, I’m sure.”

“I do,” Bruce tells him, because it doesn’t matter tremendously to him, but it does matter to other people what Bruce Wayne smells like, how expensive his scent is, how plush his mattresses are, how high his thread count is—

And whatever convinces other people to believe in the persona of Bruce Wayne— that does matter to Bruce, so. Alfred helps him keep up.

Nearly bouncing, now, Clark asks, “Can we get something to eat, too?”

“We have food at home,” Bruce replies, automatic, earning himself a snort.

“Thanks, Dad,” he replies. Knocking his shoulder into Bruce’s, he asks, “How’re we gonna get there? Want me to fly us?”

Bruce gives him a look, encompassing his entire reaction to the thought of Superman flying himself and Batman into Wayne Manor in front of God and everyone, and Clark has the gall to give him a sheepish grin.

“Maybe not my best idea,” he amends, in that aw, shucks! way of his that drives Bruce insane in several different ways.

“We’ll take my car,” Bruce tells him.

Already striding off, he knows Clark is more than capable of catching up, appearing at his side in an instant.

“The Batmobile?” Clark asks, delighted.

“No, the Honda Civic,” Bruce replies.

Even though his tone remains unchanged, Clark doesn’t need a second to process that he’s joking. He’s already laughing when he jostles Bruce again, an arm around his shoulders, already seeming brighter and more energetic than he had five minutes ago. Maybe it’s the moonlight, reflected from the sun, giving him an extra boost, surely.

Still, Bruce takes a moment to internally congratulate himself for making the right decision, focusing on that instead of the idea of bringing Clark into his home right now, for the night.

It’s not that Clark has never been to the Manor. He’s been at least a dozen times: his first couple of visits coming over for interviews, when they were still figuring each other out; the time he came over and the two of them both laid out knowing the other’s identity; the explosive argument they’d had after a particularly rough mission that saw Bruce knocked out cold for two days; a couple of dinners between the two of them and Alfred; and—

And these last few times, after their first few dates, returning to the Manor afterwards to drink coffee and talk more and make out like teenagers on his sofa until they were both breathless.

Part of Bruce had hoped the first time he got Clark in his bed, they’d be doing a little more before falling asleep, but—

A bigger part of him, right now, is relishing in the fact that sleeping is all they’ll be doing. He doesn’t need to entice Clark with his body, doesn’t need to promise him he’ll fuck him, doesn’t need to do anything except— offer him this, a safe place to wash himself thoroughly and eat a hot meal and sleep in a comfortable bed, secure and intimate and— and domestic, in a way Bruce is unused to but finds himself thrilling within. He likes to take care of people, loves to protect them, and Clark—

Well, he likes Clark most of all, he’s starting to think.

It’s a whole heck of a lot harder to protect someone like Clark than anyone else, though. He’s the one who always wants to do the protecting, and as much as it upsets Bruce to watch him take gunshots meant for him, it’s hard to deny that just one of those bullets could blow his face apart while simply pinging off of Clark’s without a mark or even a pinch of pain.

Finding ways to look after Clark— it hasn’t been easy. This is as if Bruce is making a breakthrough, one of his favorite feelings to experience, the rush of discovery and the thrill of adrenaline and the satisfaction of pieces clicking into place.

He gets a similar feeling watching Clark slide into the passenger seat of the Batmobile and click his seatbelt into place.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asks him, settling on the driver’s side.

“Safety first,” Clark replies.

Bruce studies him for an incredulous moment, where Clark’s smile only grows wider and more ridiculous by the second.

“Would that even work on you?” Bruce asks, half-amused, half-scientifically curious. “I can’t imagine it would keep you in place.”

Clark shrugs. “Brake-check someone and let’s find out.”

Bruce huffs a laugh that escapes him without warning, and the wattage on Clark’s smile should theoretically be enough to recharge him, brighter than the sun.

The ride from the Hall to the Manor is fast; Bruce has long since memorized the quickest routes at all times of day, and he zips along at top speed, easily evading the few cars left on the road at this hour. Based on the position of the moon in the sky, Bruce would place the time around two-forty-five at night— or in the morning, depending on one’s worldview.

As short as it is, and exhausted as they are, Clark still manages to fill the time with talking.

“What do you wanna eat for dinner?” Clark asks, craning his neck, tilting his forehead into the closed window to watch the stars and cityscapes as they shoot past.

“We can heat up leftovers,” Bruce replies.

Clark scoffs. “We ain’t heating up leftovers. You need a proper meal.”

“We,” Bruce amends, “need a proper meal, and Alfred’s leftovers are proper meals.”

“Yeah, well, not real hot and fresh ones,” Clark still protests.

“I’m going to tell Alfred that—”

“No, you will not,” Clark interrupts him. “You do that, I tell him you don’t always eat the lunches he packs. Which you should, by the way, or I’ll start taking them.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Bruce’s lips. “Fine. Truce.”

“Truce. Now, you keep your mouth shut,” Clark replies. The smile tugs at both corners, now. Bruce mimes zipping his lips. “No, no, I’m just kidding. Geez, I know I don’t need you talking less.”

That sends a small, prickling wave of shame and frustration through Bruce. An apology claws its way up his throat, but his teeth won’t unclench, his jaw too tight to let it free.

Clark glances sideways at him in the silence. Lots of moments with Bruce are spent in silence, but Clark seems to be getting better and better at reading the differences in his types of quiet, because he says, “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I like that you say just what you wanna say. Who needs to say more?”

A slight edge of a smile works its way back up in Bruce again, the shame retreating. He does need sleep.

“You,” he answers.

Clark’s laugh is a boom. “I’m saying what I wanna say! I just wanna say a little bit more than you do.” He’s quiet for only a moment— or, quiet, for all that he still starts humming to himself in the interim before he breaks off again into, “Hey, are we already here?”

“Yes,” Bruce answers.

The back entrance to the Batcave is one Clark’s never gone through before. He watches out the window as if a child on a roller coaster, trying to take in all the new and exciting sights as they flash by. At least, for Clark, his vision is strong enough that he must be able to observe individual images, rather than one massive cacophonous blur.

“Wow,” Clark exhales as they zip beneath the ground, disappearing through the hatch Bruce built. They flash through the tunnels below, still top-speed, and Clark lets out a whistle. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a real darn impressive guy?”

“In exactly those words?” Bruce replies. “No. Only you.”

He doesn’t need to look at Clark to know he’s smiling.

He still looks, all the same.

“Well, good,” Clark replies. “I mean— Don’t need you having more of an ego than you already do. Though I— Oh, wow.”

Clark interrupts himself this time as they come to a halt in the Batmobile’s elevator, sunken beneath the Earth. The cylindrical chamber lights up, and then they’re rocketing upwards, heading for the garage level just below the Batcave’s main floor.

“How long did all this take you?” Clark asks.

Bruce considers the constant upgrading he does, the amount of time it took to construct the entire thing, the time before that when he had to plan and gather materials and secretly put this together, and all the time before that when he was building this up in his mind, long before he started assembling the means to do so, long before the Cave itself.

“My whole life,” Bruce answers.

Clark considers this, then turns to look through the window again as the elevator comes to a final stop. The curved wall in front of them splits in half and slides apart; the Batmobile slides forward on its belt until it is placed in the parking dock, and Bruce only then unstraps himself and pushes out of the vehicle. Behind him, Clark follows his lead; Bruce hears the clicks as he unsnaps his own belt, and he can’t help but smile again.

This, at least, he can hide as he reaches up to finally tug the cowl off. He’s sure he looks a mess, disgusting and greasy and pallid, sweat caked in his hair and over every inch of him, old blood sticking tacky to a small cut under his eye that’s already started healing.

He scrubs his hand through his flattened hair, crushed by the cowl. Surely it won’t do any good, but he can’t help himself.

“Bathtime?” Clark helpfully suggests.

Bruce draws to a stuttering halt, halfway through striding towards the elevators that would take them up in the Manor proper.

Bathtime.

He’d been picturing letting Clark into his bathroom— his own, off his bedroom, because it’s the best-stocked and it’s his and so is Clark— and giving him soap and a towel and a pair of his own pajamas and closing the door behind him. When Bruce imagined this, he saw Clark emerging after his shower, rumpled and damp and clean and smelling of Bruce and dressed in his clothes. That had been more than enough of a mental image to convince him.

What Clark’s offering up, though—

Bruce hasn’t ever just— taken a bath with someone. Maybe his mother, when he was a small child; he has memories of being warm, cleaned, cared for, but they’re non-specific and nebulous.

The idea of it—

It’s just about as vulnerable as Bruce could be. In his own home, wet and slippery and naked, no armor and no disguise and— nothing, nothing but his own mind and his strength, which— admittedly, they aren’t nothing, but he’s also exhausted and drained and—

Well, it’s Clark.

Well—

It’s Clark.

That goes both ways, he thinks. He couldn’t hurt Clark, but he’s starting to believe Clark doesn’t want to hurt him, either. Not that he couldn’t— he could hurt just about anyone he set his sights on, and God help them if he did— but he doesn’t want to. Instead, he seems to actively protect him— to want to protect him.

But being vulnerable with Clark is different than with anyone else.

This isn’t just being vulnerable with his human body, sitting there in bathwater, as exposed and unprotected and insignificant as a mouse dangled over a woodchipper. It’s being vulnerable with himself; it’s being alone, naked, with Clark, and that’s— that’s vulnerability with the inside of him, with the real him, and not just the outside.

Though, it’s not like he’d be alone. Clark would be there, too, wouldn’t he? Just as exposed, just as vulnerable, just as raw. Even if his skin can’t physically be broken— emotionally, when it comes to the two of them, Bruce has been realizing it’s not all that thick.

Doing this— Bruce thinks it’d bring him closer to Clark than he is to any other living soul. Well, except Alfred, but that’s different. This would be— so much, a grand gesture wrapped inside a tiny domesticity. Bruce’s head rushes just thinking about the magnitude of what is actually being proposed, here.

And Clark’s just— offering it to him.

Unless he only said that in jest. Or Bruce is misunderstanding.

Already, Bruce feels like an idiot. Of course, he was joking, or Bruce didn’t connect the right dots for once; of course he doesn’t mean—

But when Bruce looks back to tell Clark no, he’s not grinning like he’s joking. He’s certainly not laughing. He’s smiling— but then, Clark’s almost always smiling a little bit— but he looks like he’s genuinely waiting for Bruce’s answer, standing right there behind him, following so loyally at his heels.

Good dog, Bruce thinks wildly.

“You want to take a bath?” Bruce asks him. “Together?”

“Well, yeah,” Clark replies. There’s a furrow deepening into a divot between his brows. “That’s why you brought us back here, right? I mean, maybe we can take a quick shower to wash off the top layer before we hop in, but—” He stops short, his eyes flickering up to meet Bruce’s, blue as bright as a cloudless noon sky. “Unless you don’t want to? B, y— Bruce. You don’t have to, y’know. I’m not gonna make you uncomfortable or—”

“No, no,” Bruce hurries to stop him, before he can stray too far down the wrong path. “No, I—” It feels childish, embarrassing in an immature way to admit this, but Bruce swallows down his self-consciousness to admit, “I’ve just never— done that.”

Clark considers him in that studying way again before he’s taking a step forward, another, another, human and even and paced and deliberate until he is standing just in front of Bruce. His hand, as filthy as Bruce’s face, reaches up to meet his cheek, cradling, bare skin-to-skin, and he coaxes Bruce’s eyes off of his lips and upwards, until they meet his own.

“Yeah?” Clark asks. Bruce nods, swallows; Clark’s thumb strokes along the hinge of his jaw to the underside, tracing the motion of his throat. “Would you like to try? First time for everything.”

When Bruce thinks about it— really, really thinks about it— there’s really only one answer.

“Yes, please,” he whispers, partially because Clark is rubbing off on him, and partially because Alfred taught him enough that he knows when to use his pleases and thanks, enough to use them both now. “Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for.”

Tilting in, Clark meets Bruce’s lips in a soft kiss, unhurried, close-mouthed, proper, for the first time in days. Despite their relative states of filth, he’s still bright and warm and has that vague golden taste of sunshine that Bruce can’t describe in human words. Sometimes, he wonders if there’s alien words for how Clark makes him feel— but he’s not sure anyone could describe it exactly, no matter the language. It’s just too limited as a form of expression for this expansive a feeling.

Clark’s other hand comes up to wrap firm at the back of Bruce’s neck, fingertips threading up into his hair to cradle his skull and coax him closer. Still, he doesn’t part his lips. The kiss should feel chaste because of it, but it’s anything but; the way Clark pushes into him is like he wants to crawl under his skin, pulling him closer at the same time, catching him between his hands and his body and his kiss, the only time Bruce will ever accept being trapped.

It’s only when Bruce’s human need for air becomes apparent that Clark withdraws. Every one of Bruce’s deadened, exhausted nerve endings is lighting up; Clark’s inhuman face is flushed with exertion, using whatever dregs of his energy are left for this.

Bruce reaches up, setting his own hand over Clark’s on his cheek, heavy glove over bare skin.

“Thank you,” Bruce repeats. Clark doesn’t tell him not to, this time. “We can rest afterward. Sleep.”

Clark’s smile outshines any light the sun could make. “Thank you.”

Bruce doesn’t tell him not to thank him. Instead, he withdraws Clark’s hand from his face, tugging lightly at him and stepping back to encourage him to follow. As if Clark needs the encouragement; he dogs his heels the whole way to the elevator, watching in amusement as Bruce strips off pieces of the Batsuit and drops them along the way, a breadcrumb trail left behind.

“Shouldn’t you hang those up?” Clark asks him.

“I will tomorrow,” Bruce says. “Well— Later today.”

“You mean you’ll just wait for Alfred to do it,” Clark accuses.

“I do not,” Bruce replies, dropping off the cape, letting it fall to the ground with a solid whump of hefty fabric. “The Batsuit is my responsibility.”

Clark pauses. “He won’t do your laundry.”

“Not if I leave it all over the floor,” Bruce says, and Clark laughs.

“Your dad’s just like mine sometimes,” Clark comments, slipping into the elevator beside Bruce. Now down only to the skintight one-piece body armor he wears beneath the suit, there’s pretty much no way to conceal the slight heat that brings to his face.

All the same, Clark doesn’t continue on that path. Instead, he just watches with curiosity as Bruce murmurs, “I suppose he does,” keys in his code, and offers up his eye and fingerprints for scanning before the elevator will start moving upwards towards the Manor itself. Rocking back on his heels, then forward again, Clark seems incapable of standing still; again, he starts whistling, and Bruce finds himself relaxing into the sound. Reassuring, as if he’s a canary in a coal mine; so long as Clark’s still singing, everything’s going to be okay.

When Bruce glances sidelong at him, he realizes there’s a smudge of his own black makeup on Clark’s face, just on his cheekbone. Eyes darting down to his hands, he sees more makeup there, smeared off of Bruce’s face and onto him. The heat on his face deepens; he focuses forward on the elevator doors, trying to will his heartbeat to calm down before Clark can catch him in the act.

The elevator from the Batcave is its own separate entity, apart from the elevators that dot the Manor itself. It brings them only to the bunker at the back of the main floor, where two more sets of solid doors require passcodes, handprints, retinal scans, and a sample of his DNA— Bruce spits into the tube that drops itself out of the wall— before they’re willing to budge and open up into the kitchen.

“And who says you’re paranoid?” Clark teases, so fond that all Bruce can do is roll his eyes. “Want something to eat first, or after?”

Bruce considers the idea of sitting in the hot steam of a bath without any food in his stomach, and actually stops for a moment. “Hm. Maybe first.”

“Say no more,” Clark replies, already moving. Bruce should’ve known; he’s probably hungry enough to eat everything they’ve got stocked up here and then some. The amount of energy-loading Clark’s body requires is staggering sometimes.

Before Bruce knows it, Clark— still grimy, still in his Superman suit, still exhausted— is scrubbed clean in the bathroom sink from the elbows-down and pulling ingredients out of Bruce’s fridges and cabinets. All he can do is watch as his countertops steadily fill up with a number of selections pulled from Alfred’s pre-prepared, thoroughly labeled stock; containers labeled chicken (deboned), carrots, barley, celery, bay leaf, and chicken bouillon join several others in a parade across the dark granite.

“What’re you making?” Bruce asks, curious, watching the pieces start to come together.

“Chicken and barley soup,” Clark replies. “You haven’t had anything substantial to eat that didn’t come out of a pouch on your suit in days. You gotta be gentle with your stomach.”

A pang rushes through Bruce. He tries to cover it up by asking, “Can I help?”

“Oh, no, I’ve seen you at a stove.” Clark waves him off with an empty pot in his hands. “You can help by sitting there and looking pretty, how’s that?”

“Ridiculous,” Bruce answers, and Clark stops to kiss his cheek.

“Give me ten minutes,” he murmurs against his skin, kissing him there again before he’s taking off again.

Then, Clark is a whirlwind of activity.

Watching Clark do pretty much anything is endlessly fascinating to Bruce. There are small quirks, little adjustments, tiny details that are unique to Clark that he likes to catalogue. He’s not sure anybody knows him as thoroughly as he’s been learning him, and he likes that feeling. Nobody should know him as thoroughly as Bruce does.

He’d challenge anyone to find this uninteresting, though: Clark, even as depleted as he is, moving almost too fast to perceive around the kitchen. Every now and then, there’s a flash of red as he uses his heat-vision to cheat on cooking times; a process that should probably take over an hour is done in a fast-forward blur after only twelve minutes, and that includes Clark cleaning up after himself, ladling the soup into bowls, and sitting himself beside Bruce at the kitchen island countertop. The only time he stops his whirlwind is to pause beside Bruce holding a spoon, as if appearing out of nowhere.

“Try this,” he encourages.

There’s part of Bruce that wants to refuse— strange food, didn’t see the preparation, could be anything— but he decides that’s absurd. If Clark wanted him dead, there would be far more reasonable ways to do it.

Opening his mouth for him, he allows Clark to sip the spoon between his lips. It’s only broth, really, but it is very good, and warm, and comforting, and Bruce hums, swallowing.

“It’s good,” he tells him, and Clark lights up like he’s just given him a Michelin Star.

A heartbeat later, he’s back in action, disappearing into a primary-color-blur until it’s all over and cleaned away and he’s at Bruce’s side, beaming at him.

In the back of Bruce’s mind, he wonders if Clark might be willing to slow down one day. Maybe they could make dinner together, as subpar as Bruce is at it; he wouldn’t mind moving around the kitchen with him at a human pace.

God, what is Clark doing to him? He wants to bathe with him, wants to cook with him, wants to sleep with him— God help him, actually sleep with him. He’s ruined by him.

Bruce consults the clock over the stove, then tells him, “That was twelve minutes, not ten.”

Clark shoves a spoon into his hand. “Eat your dinner, brat.”

Flushing again, Bruce ducks his head, scooping soup into his mouth without protest. A soft sigh comes up, unbidden; this is infinitely better than protein pellets out of a packet on the Batsuit, a granola bar grabbed before collapsing into bed, or even heating up a container of Alfred’s leftovers— not that he’d ever admit to that last bit. This is—

This is Clark, cooking a hot homemade meal for him— for them, even when he’s exhausted, and Bruce doesn’t think anything has ever tasted better.

He’s warmed from the inside out, soup settling just as well in his stomach as Clark had promised it would. Though Clark practically inhales his, Bruce is slower, taking one spoonful at a time; he’s scraping the last carrot bits out of the inside of his bowl when he realizes Clark is watching him.

“What?” he asks, hand already going to his face. “Do I—”

“Nah,” Clark stops him. Reaching out, he catches his hand, draws it away from his mouth and towards his own so he can kiss the back of it. “Just like looking at you.”

Bruce heats up again under the attention. He never really realized how cold he was all the time until Clark seemingly made it his own personal mission to constantly be warming him up.

“I look like shit,” Bruce replies.

“Yeah, well, I can’t look much better.” Clark turns Bruce’s hand over so his palm faces upwards, cradled in his grip. “And you’re still real pretty, Bruce. Even when you’re messy.” He pauses, only for a beat, then adds, “Sometimes especially then.”

The warm burning of embers in Bruce threatens to lick up into a fire, a tug of heat in his core, just below his belly. If he weren’t so exhausted, it just might have; as it is, he doesn’t want their first time together to be punctuated by Bruce passing out asleep before he can really show him a good time.

“Yes, well.” Bruce lets his fingertips scratch up beneath Clark’s chin, enjoying the smile he earns in return. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Clark just lights right up. He kisses Bruce’s palm again, then wrinkles his nose slightly.

“Bathtime?” Bruce asks, and Clark nods.

For a moment, he hesitates, as if deliberating something. Bruce watches, wary, curious to see what he’ll do.

Then, Clark sticks his tongue and licks Bruce’s palm.

From his wrist to his fingertips, Clark drags the flat of his tongue over Bruce’s palm, and Bruce jerks, though he doesn’t pull his hand away. He only says, “Jesus, Clark, what the hell?”

“I wanted to see how you tasted,” Clark tells him, all innocent and honest. His eyes are sparkling when he lifts them to Bruce. “What, no good?”

Bruce stares at him, his heart pounding. It takes everything in him to remember his regulation exercises and start trying to beat his pulse back down to a more sedate, less frantic pace.

“You—” Bruce starts, then stops.

After a second, he turns his hand over, snatches Clark’s wrist, and yanks it in. Nobody can make Clark move if he doesn’t want to, but Bruce has the element of surprise and— Well, Clark clearly wants to, allowing Bruce to pull his hand to his own mouth and lick his palm. Where Bruce’s hand was probably disgusting and sweaty, though, Clark is clean and soft and tastes vaguely of rosemary.

Bruce licks from his fingertips up, rather than his wrist down, and finishes at his pulse point. His human, inhuman heartbeat pounds just below his tongue; he lingers, then withdraws his tongue to press a kiss there instead.

“Gosh, Bruce,” Clark exhales over his head.

His low voice scratches something animal inside of Bruce, and he closes his eyes, hums a soft sound, and kisses him again there before withdrawing.

When he looks up, Clark’s beautiful, sleepy eyes are fixed on his, blue irises a ring around blown pupils, black holes.

“Bathtime?” Clark asks, still in that rumble.

“Yes,” Bruce agrees— couldn’t agree more.

When he stands, Clark moves in tandem, joining him in a sleepy trek from the kitchen to his bedroom. The darkened hallways make everything seem bigger and smaller, looming and tight, all at once.

The only thing that feels properly close is Clark, as if they’re tumbling through nothingness together until they’re pushing in the door and Clark is finding a lamp, switching on the soft light. It only belatedly occurs to Bruce that the halls must not seem dark at all, not to Clark with his superior vision; even Bruce’s better-than-average night-vision is no match for him.

Even so, it doesn’t seem to be only Bruce who feels the resulting closeness, the intimacy of the darkness.

At least Clark has the human decency to wait until the light is on before he whistles another descending note. “Fancy place you got here.”

“Knock it off, Clark,” Bruce warns him.

There’s enough fondness in his tone that Clark just grins at him, teases, “Bring people back here often?”

“No,” Bruce answers.

“Oh,” Clark breathes. “You, ah— You didn’t even think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it,” Bruce tells him. “I don’t bring people back here often.” After a beat, letting that hang, watching Clark watch him, he adds, “I don’t bring people back here at all.”

Clark’s grin is blinding. “Except me.”

“Yes, Clark,” Bruce sighs. “Except you.”

He watches the light dance in Clark’s eyes, pure delight as he glances down towards Bruce’s bed. Admittedly, it is a fancy place he’s got here; the cathedral windows, the ornate sconces, the dark Gothic walls lined with heavy black bookshelves, all stuffed to overflowing with leather spines and old tomes. The arched entry to his tremendous closet takes up a chunk of the north wall; just beside it, nestled in along the east wall, is an identical arched door, the same stained old wood, that leads into his bathroom.

Pushed into the center of the western wall, taking up the majority of the space in the center of the room, is his massive four-poster bed, blackout canopies draped thick and overlapping around each edge, though they’re tugged back now with ties until Bruce— and Clark, now— are in bed. They block out every bit of light; inside, it’s as if a vacuum, and Bruce can finally sleep.

The curtains are pulled back, the bed made, the covers turned down, just ready and waiting for sleep.

And Bruce can see Clark eyeballing it. He can almost witness the moment his body tenses, like a dog about to spring on its owner.

Similarly, he warns, “Don’t,” and Clark looks at him, amused and caught. “Not until you’re clean.”

“But it looks comfy,” Clark complains. “Don’t you want to just jump into it?”

“If you do, it’ll be disgusting, and I won’t sleep in it,” Bruce threatens.

Clark seems to weigh the pros and cons for a moment before he sighs, put-upon, and withdraws. Spinning around, he comments, “Y’know, this is an awful lot of space for one guy.”

“Yeah, well.” Bruce starts stripping out of the body armor suit. His body feels like it breathes as he finally releases it, his skin exposed to the open air for the first time in days, and he sighs in relief as he rolls it down. “Bruce Wayne has to keep up appearances, doesn’t he?”

“I thought you said nobody comes back here except me,” Clark protests. There’s an edge to his voice that catches Bruce’s attention, glancing at him over his shoulder as he peels the suit off.

Pulling open the handle set into the wall for the laundry chute, Bruce tosses his suit and socks in, leaving himself bare except for his tight black underwear, which— really, does not cover much. “Nobody does. But if someone did, this is about what they’d expect from him, don’t you think?” He beckons to Clark with his open hand, still holding open the laundry chute with the other. “Give me that.”

Clark takes in the room again as he shucks his own suit, boots and all.

“Mm,” he hums, fabric peeling off, exposing the hard muscle covered in his soft layer of thick fat, the impossible bulk of him, the warmth, the strength, the sunkissed golden skin and the coating of dark hair and how could anyone ever doubt Clark’s genuine humanity, when he looks like this underneath it all? “I don’t think so.”

Bruce blinks up at his face, distracted from his chest for only a brief moment before his eyes flick back down. “What?”

A laugh startles out of Clark. “Hey, my eyes are up here, B.”

“I’ve seen your eyes, I’m looking at your chest right now,” Bruce informs him, and another laugh bursts right out of him. A smile tugs at Bruce again; he’s helpless to fight it even when he’s in peak fighting form. “Hand all that here.”

Clark tosses the suit straight at his face. Though Bruce’s reflexes are quick enough to grab it, he allows it to smack right into him anyway, a moment where he’s surrounded by filthy fabric and Clark’s scent and lingering warmth that feels like bliss— though it can only be for a moment before he has to catch it or it’ll fall.

“I only meant,” Clark continues, waiting until Bruce has tossed the suit down the chute to pass him his boots, “I don’t think I’d expect this room from the Bruce Wayne persona. I’d expect it from you.” Bruce stills, even as Clark continues, “I mean, not all you. There’s definitely some of him in here, I’m guessing that is you trying to make it look like his, but— It’s also you.” He huffs a laugh, a soft thing that almost sounds self-deprecating. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I don’t know you better than y—”

“No, you—” Bruce stops him, looking over the room. He’s right. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t put this many books in here; Bruce Wayne would have ornate, flimsy curtains on the bed, and the blackout curtains would be on the windows; Bruce Wayne would have the entry to his closet flung open, and probably— clothes everywhere, and—

He’s right. This isn’t all Bruce Wayne. Bruce is here, too.

“I didn’t notice,” Bruce confesses. It’s like missing a step; his stomach swoops in a similar way. “I’m usually better at noticing.”

“Hey, you are the best at noticing,” Clark comments, jostling him with a nudge to the shoulder before he grants him a kiss to the cheek. “We’re our own worst critics, right? Hard to see the whole picture when you’re inside the canvas.”

“What storybook did they pluck you out of, again?” Bruce asks, his tone dry, trying to right the balance of the situation when he feels drastically off-kilter.

Lucky him, Clark only laughs, dragging him in closer, nuzzling his nose against the side of his face before he’s kissing the space below his eye. “Coming from the guy straight out of Dracula.”

Bruce turns into him and bares his teeth before he nips at Clark’s lower lip. He can never break the skin, but he likes to give it his best shot every time, all the same.

His face is still a mess, though, and biting at him like that means he gets a taste of skin that needs to be cleaned now, and so his hands rove over Clark’s bare chest for only a moment before he plants his palms against his soft hair and warm flesh and the pound of his heart, and pushes him off. It’s only a light push, and Clark doesn’t need to move, but he budges back anyway. His kicked-puppy frown is right back in place.

“Bathtime,” Bruce reminds him.

Clark lights up again in an instant, a light-bulb switched on, and exclaims, “Right!” before he’s moving for the twin doors set in the northeast corner. Hesitating there, he seems to pause, looking at each—

No, looking through each, Bruce realizes. He reaches for the right handle, tossing a cheeky grin over his shoulder as he pushes in the bathroom door.

“Lucky guess,” he comments.

“The luck in question being Kryptonian heritage.” Bruce opens the opposite door instead, telling him, “Go ahead and get started in the shower, if you’d like. I’ll get us something to wear for after.”

Catching him by the wrist, Clark tugs him in for another kiss. It only lasts for a moment, mostly close-mouthed before he parts his lips just at the very end, letting the tip of his tongue graze Bruce’s, sending a shiver up his spine.

When he pulls back, he licks his lips, eyes dropping down to trace the contours of Bruce’s mouth, his chin, his jaw.

“Thanks, honey,” he murmurs to him.

“Yeah,” Bruce exhales back, breathless as Clark releases him. His hand around his wrist had been a tether; without it, he’s weightless, a bit distracted as he retreats into the closet.

Distracted. Over Clark. He really has ruined him.

It takes a moment for Bruce to actually take in the options he has for Clark. They’re relatively limited; as strong as Bruce is, he’s nowhere near as broad, and Clark’s got a good few inches on him height-wise. His best shirts are going to be too tight; he has to dig a little deeper in his drawers to find an old, dark-blue t-shirt from when he was much younger, loose and soft with age, the collar yanked at so many times and the sleeves slackened and the sides bagging as such that it’ll probably fit Clark— though still, probably only just barely.

The design on the front is long since faded. What used to be an entire school of colorful fish has faded with countless washes to leave only a few, scattered and patchy, while mostly-disintegrated white text reads Gotham City Aquarium Fundraiser Gala 2009 across the chest.

Bruce clenches the fabric in his fist, then releases it with a breath.

Finding bottoms for Clark is easier; any sweatpants or pajama pants would end between his knee and his ankle, but Bruce has more than enough pairs of drawstring shorts to find something that’ll fit him, and unearths a black pair he thinks will work just fine.

For himself, Bruce just grabs the first shirt— a black tank-top— and the first bottoms— a pair of orange shorts— and then—

Then, he hesitates, his fingertips paused as they just barely brush the handle of his underwear drawer.

After a moment of intense internal deliberation, Clark calls out, “I can’t figure this darn thing out, Bruce, I need your help, please.”

As if he’d been waiting for this catalyst, Bruce just acts, tugging open the drawer and grabbing out two pairs of elastic-waisted, tight, black underwear. If Clark doesn’t fit into one of them, then, well—

Well.

Shoving the drawer shut, Bruce answers, “Coming,” and abandons the closet in favor of the bathroom. Sure enough, Clark has stripped off his own underwear— tight little red shorts patterned with the Superman design from his own suit, ridiculous— and left the pair neatly folded and tucked onto the floor in the corner like the odd duck he is.

Now, he stands inside the glass shower stall, hands on his hips, entirely naked, staring down at the blank control panel with a frown of such intense concentration Bruce is surprised his eyes haven’t started glowing red.

Bruce tugs the door open and tilts inside.

“Stand back,” he warns him, and Clark backs up just as Bruce taps the screen awake and selects the options for hot, then on. “It’ll be rainfall at first. You can change it with this, however you’d like.”

Clark stares down at the screen, then back up at Bruce, water steadily soaking his front from the shower waterfall that begins cascading down from overhead. “What the hey happened to knobs where you just gotta twist right for the hot and left for the cold?”

“You can twist knobs at your house,” Bruce tells him. “It’s a fancy place I’ve got here.”

There’s a grin on Clark’s face that vanishes behind a curtain of water as soon as he steps forward. He disappears, but Bruce can still hear his exhaled, “Wow,” and can’t help smiling as he retreats and nudges the shower door closed again. The bathroom lights are dimmed; Bruce enjoys the low glow as he starts to slip away.

Almost instantly, Clark is reemerging, cracking the door open to peek his head out. His dark curls are already soaked through, crushed against his head, swirling down like black ink to drip filthy water onto the black rug spread across the black tile floor, everything in the same dark shades with occasional golden accents.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I’m going to start the bath,” Bruce tells him. When Clark frowns at him— more of a pout, if he were a child, or Bruce less generous towards him— he adds, “And then I’ll join you.”

Clark points a finger at him, spraying tiny droplets in his direction. “You better.”

“Far be it from me to deny Superman,” Bruce replies, and it’s with a grin tossed in his direction that Clark disappears again, shower door tugged shut and his body becoming a watery blur beneath the fall from the massive showerhead again.

Bruce’s bathroom is twice the size of his closet— which is to say, far too big, but it means that he has a tremendously large bathtub set in the corner that can more than fit the two of them, deep and diamond-shaped and luxurious, surrounded by full-length floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Even with Clark’s bulk, they should have no problem, and Bruce turns each of the three faucets on, keying into the control panel to spin them all up to hot.

Already, the room is filling with steam. Bruce hesitates in front of the cabinet beside the bathtub; after a moment, he tugs it open, surveying the options inside, all the oils and lotions and bubbles and soaps and scents that Alfred keeps stocked always.

Deliberating, he takes down vials for the chamomile bath oil, the sandalwood soak, and the lavender bubbles. If Clark doesn’t like it, well— he can drain it and start over, he supposes.

Bruce is meticulous, testing the water and different amounts of the additives, until Clark finally calls out, “Come on, I’m almost done.”

“Coming,” Bruce murmurs, knowing he’ll catch it. He twists the water off; it’s too hot right now, steam rolling off in sheets, but it should be just about perfect by the time they’re ready for it. The scents bud up from the water, filling the room with soothing, calming, heavy air.

By the time he’s stepping out of his underwear and into the shower with Clark, sure enough, he’s already scrubbing himself down. The layer of grime on him has been mostly washed away, leaving clean pink skin; he’s working at his chest with a bar of eucalyptus soap when Bruce steps in, and he grins like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be.

“Just couldn’t wait, could you?” Bruce asks. “Give me that.”

He’s stealing the soap from his grip before Clark can surrender it. With a tug to the shower door behind him, he climbs under the hot spray with him.

The relief is immediate. Bruce hadn’t even realized how knotted his back— his shoulders— all of his muscles were until the steaming spray started pounding down over him, and he groans, hand gripping the soap bar so tight he almost sends it shooting off.

“Whoa, careful there,” Clark murmurs, catching him by the shoulders. He lets Bruce drop his head against his shoulder, relishing in the wonderful, warm press of Clark’s bare skin sliding against his; his hand comes up over him, his hair already slick, and cradles the back of his head again as he kisses his temple. “You’re exhausted, ain’t you?”

“Mm.” Bruce yawns against Clark’s shoulder, his jaw cracking. “I’m alright.”

“Lie to someone who can’t hear your heart,” Clark replies. “C’mere, sleepy, give me that—”

Bruce holds the soap out of his reach in protest, twisting his arm behind his back. In the process, his shoulder pops with a satisfying crack, and he groans again, already twisting to do the same thing to the other until it, too, pops and cracks and snaps that bring some small measure of relief, for the moment.

“Lord above, I’ll never get used to that,” Clark comments.

Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Bruce tips back upright to start lathering Clark’s chest with the soap himself. He’s well aware of the gunk and blood and filth the water is sluicing off of him as he stands here, but he has his priorities, for the moment.

Clark seems to have his, too; while Bruce works at scratching his fingernails through the suds and hair on Clark’s chest, making sure he works up every last bit of dirt, Clark’s hand comes up to cradle his face. His thumb sweeps under one eye, and he frowns just before he asks, “Does that hurt?”

“What? No,” Bruce answers. Clark’s thumb nudges up at his cut a little bit, and Bruce stiffens imperceptibly, biting back a hiss.

Well, apparently not imperceptible to Clark.

“Thought so,” he murmurs, eyes slipping down over the cut on Bruce’s cheek. “Let me clean it.”

“I have a first aid kit, I can—”

“Let me— Just, let me?” Clark asks again. “Once we’re out. I can do it.”

Let me—

“Okay,” Bruce allows, and Clark kisses just below the cut on his cheekbone, and Bruce resumes his careful work of cleaning him.

The rest of that first layer comes off easy before Clark is snatching the soap back for himself. When Bruce makes a wordless noise of protest, he just clicks his tongue at him.

“It’s bathtime,” Clark reminds him. “This is just a rinse.” He kisses Bruce square in the center of his forehead, then runs the bar of soap over his chest instead. Despite the flush of heat, Bruce still gets goosebumps all over. “Stay still.”

As told, Bruce stays still, committing to memory every single touch of Clark’s hands on his skin. His eyes drift down over his body, lost in the haze, drinking in the miles of his skin, the toned muscle, the dark hair that leads to the thatch between his legs, then back up towards his face, finding the bright blue of his eyes as they flick over Bruce’s body in turn while he works.

“There we go,” Clark murmurs, running a soapy hand over Bruce’s shoulder to the back of his neck. The tacky feeling on Bruce’s skin is sliding off in sheets, and the relief is so great, and the exhaustion so deep, he could dissolve.

Clark keeps him from going down the drain, keeping him upright until he’s rinsed enough to be passably clean. It’s then that he takes him by the chin with one hand, tipping his face up.

“Hi, there.” Clark holds up his sudsy palm, the soap bar returned to its shelf. “May I?” When Bruce nods, he tells him, “Close your eyes.”

With a shiver, Bruce lets his eyes close. This, too, is impossibly vulnerable; Clark could do anything to him right now, anything, and Bruce wouldn’t even know. Not until it was too late. If he decided to just— blow his head off, or rip him in half, or throw him through the wall, there probably wouldn’t even be time for Bruce to register it before he’d be dead.

But this is Clark.

His thumb sweeps beneath Bruce’s eye, gentle but firm, working at removing the makeup still caked on there, layered over with sweat and tears and blood. He’s so careful, moving under each of his eyes and around them, careful near his cut; his thumbs work over his eyelids, so light Bruce can barely feel the touch on his eyeballs. Nobody would ever think, feeling a touch that soft, that Clark was capable of so much strength.

If they knew Clark, though, they should. That gentleness is such an important part of his strength, Bruce thinks.

Clark even cleans his eyelashes, slow and steady, before he moves onto the rest of his face.

“I know you probably have a fancy sorta skincare regimen,” he says, voice softer and warmer than the water. “Or Bruce Wayne does. But this oughta do for now.” After a kiss to the tip of Bruce’s nose, making him twitch and near-smile, Clark instructs him, “Hold your breath.”

Bruce catches the air in his chest, and two cupped palmfuls of warm water cascade over his face a moment later.

“And again,” Clark rumbles, and keeps going until he has deemed Bruce clean. It’s then that he retakes the soap to clean his cut one more time, tender around the edges, and rinses him for his final round.

In the haze, his eyes still closed, Bruce tilts into him. Clark catches him, holding him close, his hands cradling his face and coaxing his eyes into reopening.

“Hey, there you are,” Clark greets him, and Bruce can’t help but smile sleepily up at him, water clinging heavy to his eyelashes. “Good to see you again.”

“Mm,” Bruce says, expansive.

Clark only huffs a laugh, drawing Bruce in with two big arms around his shoulders, pressing a kiss to his temple and pulling him under the spray of the water with him once more. It’s as if he’s surrounded by their shared warmth, and Bruce starts to melt again, caught up by Clark’s embrace, burying his face in his throat as he twines his own arms around his waist.

“Still with me?” he murmurs near Bruce’s ear, and gets a slow tilt of his head in return. “Good. Think we can make it out there without slipping?”

“I can,” Bruce mumbles into his shoulder.

He earns himself another laugh, and can’t help the smile he buries in Clark’s shoulder, too.

Bruce is the one who taps the shower off, blinking through the sleepy haze enough to coordinate his limbs into obeying. Outside the shower, Bruce catches Clark ducking to look beneath the sink counter rather than heading for the bath, dripping water all over the plush rug, and he frowns.

“What are you doing?” he asks, with a vague gesture towards the bathtub. “Bathtime.”

Clark straightens up. “First aid time next, pal. Bathtime can come right after. Where’s your kit?”

“Oh.” Bruce moves to the sink, pressing his palm against the wall and releasing the spring-door on the medicine cabinet built in there.

“Dang it, Bruce. This is a Go Go Gadget house,” Clark remarks. “Sit on the toilet.”

“Already so intimate,” Bruce replies. “You do this with all the guys?”

“Nope,” Clark answers, walking him over to sit on the closed toilet seat lid. “Just you. Tilt your head up.”

Bruce does as told, watching with half-observant, half-dreamy vision, caught in between awake and asleep. With a sure hand, too steady for how tired he must be, Clark takes Bruce by the chin and angles his head further, giving himself a better view of the cut under his eye. With a furrowed brow and a frowning hum to himself, Clark returns his attention to the first aid kit.

Before Bruce knows it, he’s getting an alcohol swab swiped through the cut, and this time he does hiss like a spitting cat. His head would’ve jerked back, if Clark hadn’t anticipated him and been prepared to catch him by the back of the skull and hold him firmly in place.

“Easy does it,” Clark murmurs. Bruce slices a glare up at him. “It’ll be over in a second.”

Sure enough, it is over in a second, and Clark examines the wound closely before he seems to look further than skin-deep.

“I don’t see any infection,” Clark comments. “But I’ll keep an eye on it.”

His final touch is a bandage, tugged out of their compartment in the kit and smoothed over Bruce’s cheekbone. Leaning in, he presses a light kiss over the center of the bandaid, then withdraws to catch his eye.

“There,” he says. “Now, isn’t that much better?”

“Mm.” He tips his chin up a little further, and Clark ducks down accordingly, meets him in a soft, simple kiss. “Thank you.”

“Thanks for letting me,” he echoes. “Want to get in the water now?”

In lieu of a verbal answer, Bruce only nods within Clark’s grip on his chin, his jaw.

Though it’s his bathroom— and his bathtub, and the bath he drew— Bruce allows Clark to lead him rather than the other way around. Their steps into the bath are clumsy, even Clark’s, but they manage to climb inside without slipping.

“I like the bubbles,” Clark comments brightly, standing there in steaming scented water up past his knees in the deep bathtub and lavender bubbles up even higher. “How do you want me?”

Every way, Bruce thinks.

“There,” he directs with a tip of his chin, and Clark goes where instructed, claiming his seat against the far edge of the diamond-shaped bathtub, his back to the mirrors. In the dim light, they can hardly make themselves out, anyways. The bulk of Clark’s body displaces the water, raising the water higher, and Bruce sinks down, dissolving against him. Though he intends to lie with his back to Clark’s front, he finds himself instead curling sideways into him like a cat, closing his eyes, sighing.

There’s a light splash as Clark lifts his big hand out of the water. A moment later, warm water is dripping onto and rolling down Bruce’s shoulders, and his hair is being stroked back from his face, and he sighs again, deeper this time, his chest inflating and deflating heavily.

“Hey,” Clark whispers near his ear. Bruce rumbles in response. “This ain’t a bathtub.”

Bruce scoffs against his chest, one eye opening. “What is it, then?”

“A hot tub,” Clark says.

“Hot tubs are a very specific thing,” Bruce tells him. “This is a bathtub. It’s in a bathroom.”

As if it proves his point, Clark leans over and presses a button, starting up the jets and setting the water to roiling, the bubbles foaming on top, lapping against them in warm, scented waves.

“It’s still in a bathroom,” Bruce rumbles, lowering himself against Clark again, allowing his eye to slip shut once more. “And still used for bathing. Thus, bathtub.”

There’s a quiet moment before Clark says, in a stage-whisper apparently meant for himself but clearly intended for Bruce, “This is a swimming pool.”

“You probably had a swimming hole,” Bruce accuses.

“And what of it?” Clark asks.

Bruce imagines it— imagines Clark, laughing and having fun and without the weight of the world on his shoulders just yet. Imagines him young and happy and diving into some pond with a bunch of other kids, just— being himself.

“That must have been nice,” Bruce comments. “Did you like it?”

It’s clear that’s not the response Clark is expecting. There’s another beat of silence before he answers, “Yeah, I did. Maybe I can take you there sometime.”

The mental picture gets harder to imagine with Bruce there. Smallville is so unlike everything he knows, he doesn’t belong—

But, then again, Smallville is where Clark’s from. Could be nice for Clark to bring him there, show him around, let him see all his favorite places from when he was younger, hear all of his stories, meet the people that matter to him.

After all, he might not know Smallville, but he knows Clark, so— Smallville can’t be all bad.

“I think I’d like that,” Bruce tells him, quiet.

“Oh, well, I’ll definitely have to take you, then,” Clark says. “I’d love to see Ma get her hands on you. And you and Pa— You talk about as much as each other, I bet you’d get along like peas and carrots.”

Clark has absolutely ruined him.

“Like peas and carrots,” he repeats, dry.

“Mm-hmm.” Clark kisses the top of his head, wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight against him in the bubbling hot water. He sighs— Bruce’s head lifts with the intake of breath, and sinks with the exhale— and doesn’t say any more than that, relaxing into the water with him.

He’s quiet for long enough that Bruce hears his slow heart calming even further. Still, Bruce listens, ear pressed over his heart; with his other hand, he reaches out, shifting to take hold of the bath sponge off the edge.

“Where’re you going?” Clark asks, his voice more a rumble he feels than a sound he hears, his grip on him tightening.

“I’m going to give you a bath,” Bruce answers.

Sitting up between his spread thighs, Bruce reaches next for the lavender wash in its jar on the bathtub’s rim. A healthy amount gets drizzled over and soaked into the sponge before he’s working it up into a thick lather of fragrant soap that makes Clark close his eyes and inhale, deep into his lungs.

“That’s nice,” Clark comments, letting Bruce situate himself on his knees now, facing him.

Bruce doesn’t respond. Internally, he’s delighted to know Clark likes this; externally, he runs the sponge from Clark’s clavicle up over his shoulder, starting to wash him clean himself.

The shower rinse did most of the work already. Bruce still takes his time, methodical in cleansing every square inch of Clark’s body. He moves from his shoulder down his arm, catching his hand and pulling it up so he can extend his elbow and give him access to the limb in its entirety; he washes over his strong muscles, his dark hair, inside the bend, over his wrist to his hand, in between his fingers, down to his fingertips, then back up his arm and across his chest to the other to repeat the process.

When Bruce is working his way back to Clark’s chest, his eyes flick up and catch him staring at him through his dark eyelashes, too long and too pretty.

Bruce lets his own eyes linger on Clark’s for a drawn-out moment. His stomach pulses in time with his heart; Clark lets one leg bend, sliding up to nudge his bare thigh against Bruce, a soft and silent greeting.

Shifting, Bruce presses his cheek to Clark’s kneecap, letting himself rest there as he reaches out to continue washing his chest, the black hair curling there. Every inch, every last bit, over his nipples and down to his belly, dipping beneath the water and letting the soap plume up as he brings the sponge down the solid softness of his stomach and down between his thighs.

His breath hitches, but Bruce is just as gentle and thorough here as he is anywhere else. His hand joins his sponge, keeping Clark’s thighs spread apart as he dips between them, behind him and back up, letting Clark sigh and relax into his hold.

With his hand braced beneath Clark’s knee, Bruce presses a kiss to the side of the joint before he starts working at one thick thigh. The muscles tighten beneath his touch before loosening again, everywhere he moves; Bruce bends his head to kiss there, too, and to trail down past his knee to his calf, his shin, one hand washing, the other massaging, kissing everywhere he cleans, unable to stop now that he’s started. Catching Clark’s ankle, he kisses the knob of bone there, and relishes in Clark’s groan over his head.

“Bruce,” Clark exhales as Bruce’s other hand keeps moving down, gliding the sponge along the arch of his foot.

“Shh,” Bruce quiets him. “I’ve got you.”

Clark continues dissolving into the water as Bruce brings his attention to his other leg, drawing it up just the same, tracing every cleansed path of the sponge with a trail of kisses behind. Bruce works at his muscles the same way, too, until they’re all dissolving, knots all starting to vanish. His head knocks back, hanging against the edge of the tub, when Bruce mouths at his kneecap, his grip tight just beneath his thigh, holding him close.

Again, his breath stutters, and so Bruce withdraws, returning to his ministrations. He’s careful in wrapping his fingers around Clark’s ankle. It’s not about the possibility of hurting him— there’s virtually no chance of that— but the idea of handling him in a way he doesn’t deserve is— is unthinkable. Bruce isn’t going to yank him around because he doesn’t want to yank him around right now; he wants to be gentle with him, wants him to be treated this way, doesn’t care how tough he actually is when he’s more focused on other parts of him right now besides his supposed invulnerability.

It’s only after he has thoroughly cleaned every bit of him Bruce can reach that he tilts forward to stroke the sponge over Clark’s throat and order him, “Switch places with me.”

Boneless, Clark obeys, shuffling forward until Bruce can put himself behind him, a reversal of positions. There, he runs the sponge in a line across Clark’s shoulders, watching the hot water spill down his broad back, the spread of his shoulders, the planes of his muscles, the knobs of his spine, the taper of his waist. After a top-up from the lavender wash, he brings the sponge to his back and squeezes again, letting soap suds rush down this time, foamy light-purple trails that Bruce chases to scrub at.

Like he did with the tense muscles in his legs, Bruce digs into the knots of Clark’s back as he washes him. It takes effort to actually push in and get to his muscles; privately, Bruce thrills in being strong enough to do this for him.

Under his hands, Clark practically liquefies. His head hangs forward, shoulders slumped, and Bruce works across his shoulders, down his spine and across, and across, and across, over and over again, until he’s reaching the small of his back and pushing in with his thumbs until Clark whimpers and Bruce feels everything inside of him give.

“There,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to his shoulder. “Better?”

“Bruce,” Clark mumbles, trailing out of his mouth like syrup.

“Yeah.” Bruce shifts to squeeze the sponge out underwater, then wringing it out above, setting it aside to dry. The bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and hair mask are within arm’s reach; he stretches for them next, dragging the shampoo close enough to pump a palmful into his cupped hand. “Dunk your head for me.”

Clark obeys, wordless, tipping forward and holding his breath to dip his head beneath the water. He goes until he’s submerged, then lifts back up, wet and soapy curls dripping down into his face.

“Come back to me,” Bruce instructs him, coaxes him back, and Clark shifts to sit between his spread thighs again. He’s broad enough that there’s a bit of a burn, but not so wide at his hips and his waist that it hurts; Bruce wonders if it would be a different story, if his legs were to be spread over his shoulders instead—

His hand very carefully does not shake as he brings his palm up to drizzle shampoo over Clark’s hair, milky-white and lightweight and disappearing right into curls blacker than night. Only when his hand is empty does he rub both palms together, working the remains into a lather before sliding his fingers through the strands.

He’s run his hands through his hair before— stroked it while Clark tipped against him, gripped it while he kissed him, pushed it back while examining his face— but this is different. This is him being allowed to touch as much as possible, to work his way over each and every strand and clean them all thoroughly, from his scalp to the ends. When he’s sure he’s clean, he introduces his nails, scratching along to work up any remaining dirt, sweat, anything that might be trying to hang behind.

Under his touch, Clark groans, his head falling back to thump into Bruce’s shoulder.

Amused, Bruce murmurs, “I can’t wash your hair like this.”

“That’s too dang bad, ‘cause I don’t think I can move,” Clark mumbles. When Bruce pushes at him, he is fairly boneless; it takes effort to nudge him forward, and Bruce catches him with one hand holding his shoulder.

“Stay there,” Bruce instructs him, running his hand up from the nape of his neck through the short hairs there and up to the crown of his skull, nails scraping the whole way into his thicker curls.

Clark shivers.

A pang of pure affection rushes through Bruce, touched by a protective edge, drawn out of him by this creature that could do anything right now— do anything, be anyone, destroy this room and Bruce’s home and the entire world if that’s what he wanted— and yet is here, under Bruce’s hands, melting when he scratches his nails along his scalp and pets his hair.

It’s hard for him to express his emotions. When he leans forward to kiss the curve of Clark’s shoulder before continuing, he likes to think— he hopes, with that hope Clark inspires in everyone, and himself no exception— that Clark knows exactly what he means by it.

“Close your eyes,” Bruce instructs him. He trusts Clark has done so, and brings palmfuls of water over his head, working out every last bit of shampoo twice over. Each glossy-wet strand being cleansed and revealed cracks something new inside of Bruce; he can feel so much larger than life, sometimes, that having him here under his hands, rubbing soap from a lock of his hair held between his thumb and forefinger, makes him want to just— ask him to stay and keep him here and never let him go again, that desperate kind of clinging he can never let himself want and yet always, always wants.

It’s only when he’s certain Clark’s hair is rinsed clear that he repeats the process with the conditioner, and then the hair mask, thorough with every curl, gentle with his hair and then firmer with his scalp. All the while, Clark just keeps sinking, relaxing further and further until Bruce could swear he’s asleep sitting up, breath coming even and heart rate slowed down soft.

Letting one curl fall into his face, hanging separate from the rest, Bruce thinks, Superman.

His own pulse kicks up. He works water through his hair to rinse out the cream from the mask, the last of the soap sluicing over Clark’s shoulders and down his chest, his back, his strong arms to disappear in swirls into the water. Inside, Bruce thrills at the idea of being surrounded by Clark, the soaps off his body and the dirt that’s been washed off of him to dissolve into the water and him, here in front of him. It scratches the part of his brain that Clark always seems to make itch.

“There,” he murmurs, when Clark is completely cleaned and rinsed. It’s almost disappointing to be done; he’d go on forever if he could, never taking his hands off Clark, lingering in this hazy in-between dream state they’ve found themselves in.

But they’re exhausted, and soon they’ll sleep, and when they wake up, they’ll have to be Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent again— and then Batman and Superman— and it never stops. Not even for them, not even for this. It can’t.

For now, though—

Bruce has always found it difficult to indulge in moments like these, but he does not find it difficult to indulge Clark. It’s easier to justify in his mind than he’d like.

“Mm.” Clark shifts a little, his shoulders moving up just slightly. When his head tilts, he rumbles out, “Your turn.”

“You’re already asleep,” Bruce points out. “Why don’t we just go to—”

“No,” Clark stops him. “Your turn.”

Before Bruce knows it, he’s being manhandled around. Clark really is the only one who can do this with him, and he does it so effortlessly. It brings a bright heat to his face; he can only hope the flush of the bath’s warmth can cover for him, though his soft grunt when Clark settles with Bruce in his arms, between his thighs, his back to Clark’s front— that, unfortunately, cannot be hidden. It does earn him a kiss to the top knob of his spine, though.

“Where’s that darn— Here we go.” Clark’s body moves behind him, muscles all bunching and shifting against him as he stretches for the sponge and the wash. “Lay back, relax, honey. I gotcha now.”

Bruce wants to protest— Clark had been so sleepy, so on the verge of resting, he should be in bed right now— but then Clark is guiding his head back to rest against his shoulder, and he’s running the sponge across Bruce’s collarbone, and all he can do is close his eyes and feel.

He understands now why Clark was practically falling apart under his hands. If that felt even half as good as this feels, Bruce thinks they could both be liquid enough to go down the drain at the end of this.

Everywhere Clark touches feels like it loosens, and warms, and— and is cleansed. His muscles relax as Clark pushes into them; Bruce’s whole body is tense, coiled tight, until Clark works his way across each muscle to pull them apart like strings of taffy until they’re soft and pliable. Rather than stretching him out, he cradles him close as he works, tucked into the circle of his arms, and Bruce shivers this time, tucking his face up into Clark’s throat with a hum.

His touch follows the same path Bruce had on him: starts with first his right arm, holding him close and bracketing him with his bent knees and thick thighs while he washes down his triceps, inside his elbow, down his forearm to the sensitive inside of his wrist, where his pale skin reveals the circuitry of his blue human veins.

Clark presses his thumb there, just for a moment. Bruce’s exhale trembles out of him; his inhale is steadier.

His hand glides down over Bruce’s, swallowing it inside his own long fingers, a broader palm and a bigger hand than he has. His soapy fingers intertwine with Bruce’s, his thumb rubbing circles into the back of his hand, and Bruce opens his eyes, transfixed on the motions of their hands together, moving in tandem.

For a moment, Clark squeezes his hand, holding it tight. Then, he takes the sponge back up and resumes his work, gliding up Bruce’s arm again and across his chest to the other to repeat the process, just as thorough, just as tender, and Bruce stares just as hard at their twining hands and the watery soap dripping off in lavender-scented drops. His eyes only slip closed again when Clark retreats to his chest once more. The sponge lingers over his heart, for a moment, and Bruce exhales again; it’s only then that the touch drags down over his nipple towards his belly, the soft sponge finding hard muscle and the thin layer of fat he’s barely been able to keep on since he was a child.

At first, he’d felt too insignificant next to Clark, even with his muscles; now, he lets Clark relish in the shape of him, knowing that they are just right for each other, thrilling in Clark’s bulk over him.

The sponge goes further, further down, dipping beneath the water and between Bruce’s thighs. He understands the hitches in Clark’s breathing now, when Clark is running the sponge soft over him, just firm enough to give pressure, to cleanse, to tease, but nothing more.

Low in his throat, quiet, Bruce can’t help but groan. Clark kisses the hinge of his jaw.

“That’s it,” Clark murmurs, so close to his ear. “I got you.”

He sweeps back up, then leans them forward, a heavy blanket draping over Bruce’s back. The press is incredible; Bruce leans even further forward, hoping to encourage Clark to put his full weight on him, not caring if it might send him careening through the center of the Earth and out the other side.

“Careful,” Clark rumbles, his arm spreading across his chest like an iron bar to keep him from drowning himself in his pursuit of using Clark as a living weighted blanket.

Leaned forward like this, Clark can run his hands up Bruce’s legs, inside and out. He can’t trace kisses along the lines of him like Bruce did to him, but Bruce doesn’t want him to let go of him right now, so he considers it an even trade. If they ever get to do this again— Bruce tries not to think when, tries not to consider this a guarantee, even as he knows in the back of his mind that he’s far, far past that point— they’ll have time to try anything, everything they want.

Bruce relaxes into the pressure, the weight, the gliding of Clark’s hands. He had been right before, this is the most vulnerable he could be, and there’s a part of him that is terrified by it, a lightning thrill that occasionally pulses through him, but—

Most of him, he finds, wants this, and Clark is giving it, and if it makes Clark happy— if it makes Bruce happy, which he can just about admit he is, for the first time in potentially forever, or at least since he was eight years old— then it feels worthwhile. Bruce doesn’t do anything that’s not worthwhile, that doesn’t serve people, that doesn’t feel just and fair and right.

This— This is right.

Clark tips back again, though a broad hand pressed firm between Bruce’s shoulder-blades keeps him from moving with him. Instead, he allows Clark to keep him curved forward as he washes his back, now, and—

His hands are so strong, working out knots in his muscles as he goes that Bruce hadn’t even known were there. It’s painful in a cleansing kind of way; Clark keeps stopping, hesitant when he makes any soft noise, any grunt, any groan, but Bruce keeps mumbling, “Don’t stop,” and Clark obeys.

The methodical working of his back— the release of tension, square inch by square inch— the heady steam, the strong scents, Clark’s touch— everything is combining to make Bruce drowsier than he already was. He thinks he’s half-asleep by the time Clark reaches the small of his back, taking him by the hips, murmuring, “Ready?”

Bruce nods, barely conscious, and Clark jerks his hands, one sharp movement that feels like it cracks Bruce’s entire skeleton. He gasps out loud as everything settles into place, then collapses backwards against him.

“What the hell,” he mumbles. The words are like pudding.

“Better, right?” Clark kisses his cheek. “Now, up, up, up, up— There we go,” he encourages, once Bruce is sitting upright, his head tilted back. Kissing his crown, Clark instructs him, “Close your eyes,” and it’s Bruce who obeys this time.

He’s expecting the rush of warm water over his face, his hair, and exhales into it, and the next palmful from Clark’s hand, and the next, until he’s thoroughly soaked. The same shampoo, the same conditioner, the same hair mask— Clark drags them all over, pumps them into his hands, works the same scent through Bruce’s hair that’s lingering in his own, sandalwood and bergamot and rich warmth and luxurious citrus and deep relaxation.

Clark runs his hand from Bruce’s hairline back, stroking suds through it before he starts working at the individual strands themselves. Whether he was inspired by Bruce, or he just wants to be as thorough— Bruce doesn’t care what his motivation is.

Nobody has ever done this for him.

Nobody has ever held him close, intimate, vulnerable like this, and run their hands through his hair, and washed the grease and sweat and grime from him. Nobody has scratched their nails along his scalp, making his stomach swoop and his bones liquefy and his heart jelly. Nobody has focused themself entirely on making sure Bruce is clean and cared for like this, in the circle of their arms, doing all the work themself to make him that way. Nobody.

If he were a romantic, he’d say it’s because he’s been waiting for Clark to be the first— the only— the last.

The way Clark scrapes his nails through his hair, dragging along Bruce’s scalp in slow strokes, from his hairline all the way down to the nape of his neck, seems connected to something inside of Bruce that just curls up into him at the sensation. Every pass draws him closer, makes his insides warmer and softer, has him relaxing until he’s feeling the foggy tug of sleep and his head is tipping back again to collapse against Clark’s shoulder.

“You’re just about done,” Clark murmurs to him. “You wanna get out?”

Never, Bruce thinks, even as his jaw cracks around a yawn he can’t suppress. Too human, always. “In a minute.”

“In a minute,” Clark echoes. There’s a smile evident in his voice that makes Bruce smile, too, before he turns his head to tuck his face into Clark’s throat again. He kisses him there, then yawns once more, sighing at the end. 

A minute goes by too quickly— but so do two, and three, and Bruce just sighs, relaxing into Clark, turning just enough to wind an arm around him in return, wanting to hold without relinquishing being held.

It’s just enough, though, that he can tip his head up when Clark tips his down to meet him in the middle. Their first kiss is lazy; so is the next, and the next, the two of them just tiredly moving their mouths against each other, occasionally nipping at a lip or dragging along a tongue, but— mostly just slow, lethargic, half-asleep making-out, curled up into each other into the bathtub.

Three minutes becomes five, though, and five minutes becomes ten; the jets are nice but the hot water has long since turned warm, and they’ve spent enough time focused on cleaning each other, indulging in every moment, that that warm water is now beginning to cool.

It’s when Bruce is hit with his first— only, last— shiver, directly into Clark’s mouth, that Clark murmurs, “Alright, that’s curtains.”

His hands coax Bruce into standing, water streaming off their bodies to return to the tub below. The jets flick off; the tub starts to drain; the two of them stagger into the towels hanging on the wall, massive and fluffy and black, and Clark grabs one up before Bruce can to throw over his head. Before he knows it, he’s being rumpled, Clark toweling his hair dry; he peeks at him under the edge when he’s done, grins.

“All good?” he asks, and Bruce flips the towel over his head, stretching up onto the balls of his bare feet to return the favor.

They’re bath-damp, steam-warm, hair not quite dry as they tug on the pajamas Bruce retrieved for them. Sure enough, his clothes don’t quite fit Clark, but he squeezes into the underwear, and the t-shirt works well enough, and he leaves the shorts untied. His muscles practically bulge out of everything, especially around his arms and his thighs, but Bruce considers this a feature, not a bug.

Clark catches him around the waist once he’s in his own pajamas, mouthing at the side of his neck, too tired to do much else. All the same, Bruce is sure he’ll have a mark there tomorrow; Clark seems to love marking him as much as Bruce loves having his marks, even if nobody sees them but the two of them. Maybe even especially then.

“Ready for bed?” Clark asks him, and it’s so domestic, so ridiculous, so right.

“Yes,” Bruce murmurs in reply. Allowing his head to tip back and to the side, he gives Clark better access to his throat; his reward is a wet kiss just beneath his jawline before Clark is withdrawing again, catching Bruce by tangling their fingers together.

“C’mon,” he encourages him, tugging at his hand, coaxing him out of the humid bathroom and out into the bedroom again. They pad to the bed in their bare feet— and Clark pauses, just next to the bed, looking it over for a moment before he asks, “Which side do you normally sleep on?”

It gives away too much, but Bruce doesn’t have a better answer than, “I don’t have a side. I’ve never had to choose.”

Clark tips his head up to consider this— to consider Bruce— before he glances towards the door that leads into the bedroom, closest to the left side of the bed.

“I’ll sleep on the left,” he tells him, and Bruce’s insides twist with a pang. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yes,” Bruce repeats, and wishes he could say more, wishes he could express himself, wishes, wishes, wishes—

And at least one comes true, when Clark climbs into his bed, beneath the covers, and pats the spot beside him, asking, “You’re coming, right?”

Bruce’s answer is physical, pulling himself up beside him, reaching to undo the threads holding the blackout curtains together before he actually lays down. Each of them swing into place, and, in a heartbeat, they are immersed in pure darkness.

“Wait,” Bruce asks, hesitating. “Won’t you need the sun in the morning?”

“Nah,” Clark answers. He’s a nebulous voice, close but invisible. “I think I’m gonna take a sick day. Sleep in. I’ve earned it.”

In that absolute blackness, Clark reaches for Bruce, helps him maneuver beneath the covers. He doesn't necessarily need the assistance, but he lets Clark work at him all the same. It’s nice, the way Clark is pulling him against him, adjusting him so they’re curled up together, and Clark—

It feels like he starts to turn over towards the left before he hesitates.

“Go ahead,” Bruce murmurs.

“You sure?” Clark asks. “I know I’m a big—”

“Clark,” Bruce stops him, and Clark’s breath catches. “Roll over.”

Shuffling, Clark rolls over onto his side, right there in the left-of-center of Bruce’s huge bed. They’re both so dissolved that Bruce can feel how Clark has melted into the mattress just as much as he has; it’s not the softest in the world, still firm enough not to destroy Bruce’s often-battered body, but it’s still plenty soft, and especially now.

Bruce can really feel how liquid Clark has become when he fits Clark’s back to his front, winding himself around him. He shuffles one arm under Clark, beneath his pillow; the other wraps around his middle, hand curved up, palm settled over his heart, fingers moving soft and slow to pet his chest. Good boy.

One leg, Bruce extends, letting it slip between Clark’s calves, his legs bent at just such an angle. The other, Bruce throws over Clark’s hips, clinging closer to him, hanging onto him like he’s his backpack, spooning him from behind.

Once he’s in place, Clark full-body exhales. Bruce can feel everything inside of him just— let go.

“How’s that?” he asks.

“That’s just about perfect,” Clark mumbles into his pillow. “Thank you, honey. I love you.”

Bruce tenses, surprised, not anticipating this slip in the least.

Unfazed, Clark just continues, “You don’t gotta say it back. I just had to. Sorry about that.”

He sounds so sleepy, so vulnerable, this alien creature that has spent the last few days fighting goddamned earth-core goblin-monsters at his side before using these past couple hours to just— luxuriate in him, take care of him, be taken care of by him.

The words catch in Bruce’s throat. Pushing forward, pressing his lips to the top knob of Clark’s spine, he murmurs, “Don’t be sorry. Clark— Don’t be sorry.”

Clark’s hand comes up over Bruce’s, on top of his heart, and squeezes.

Inside his chest, Bruce’s heart starts thumping, deeper and harder and Clark must be able to feel it against his back.

When he whispers, “I love you,” against his skin, so soft and quiet that he can’t even hear the words, as if he hasn’t said them at all— and Clark’s hand over his tightens, not a word escaping him even in this silent acknowledgment that he has heard him, the only one who possibly could— the world doesn’t collapse. Clark is not ripped away from him. This does not dissolve as a dream. Not yet, anyway.

Instead, everything stays, as if it’s capable of such a thing. Clark stays, even.

“Sleep,” Clark tells him around a yawn. “I’ll be here in the morning if you are.”

A shudder runs through Bruce, even as his heart starts to slow again, and he tightens his grip on him. He’s hanging on tight as the lethargy of their night— and the exhaustion of their last few days— catches back up to both of them.

Clark is the first to fall asleep, held in Bruce’s arms, his back to him. So, so vulnerable. Just like Bruce.

Bruce kisses the juncture of his throat and shoulder and murmurs again, “I love you,” then again into his nape of his neck, “I love you,” and again into his hair, “I love you,” because he has trained before. He knows practice makes perfect, and Clark was right: this is just about perfect.