Chapter Text
Sunlight is just barely streaming into the room, the kind that slips in quietly, pale and tentative, laying itself across the hardwood in thin, luminous sheets. Dust motes hang suspended in the air, drifting lazily, and Clark is already awake. Not because he needs to be—he hasn’t had to wake with the sun in decades—but because Bruce breathes differently when he sleeps. There’s no careful control to it, no measured restraint. His breaths are deeper, softer, unguarded in a way that makes Clark’s chest ache pleasantly.
Clark lies there listening, memorising the rhythm the way he’s memorised heartbeats across galaxies. Bruce is half-draped over him, all solid warmth and familiar weight. One arm is tucked securely beneath Clark’s ribs, anchoring him in place, while the other is thrown across his stomach, possessive and unconscious, like Bruce had claimed him sometime around three in the morning and never let go. He’s heavy in the way only someone exhausted can be—boneless, trusting. The kind of weight that says I am safe here, even if Bruce would deny it with his last breath. Clark shifts beneath him just slightly, careful not to disturb him, and presses a kiss into the soft, unruly mess of dark hair at Bruce’s crown.
“Morning,” Clark murmurs, his voice low and gentle, the word brushed into Bruce’s hair rather than spoken aloud. He inhales, slow and deep, taking in the familiar blend of aftershave and cologne beneath the clean scent of sleep—everything that is unmistakably Bruce.
Not Batman, not Brucie, but Bruce. Rough and aloof on the outside, but is really just a big ol’ teddy bear on the inside. Not that Clark would ever say that out loud to him! He would probably be gutted– literally. Bruce grumbles incoherently. It’s not a word, more like an exhale with opinions.
“You awake?” His voice comes out soft, fingers tracing light, soothing patterns against Bruce’s back. His fingers graze over raised skin where scars are, and he feels Bruce shiver.
“No.” Bruce’s voice is gravel dragged across velvet—rough with sleep, honest in ways he never is when the cowl’s involved.
He tightens his grip, pulling Clark a fraction closer, clearly intending to immobilise any attempt at Clark’s escape.
Clark just smiles into Bruce’s hair, his fingers carding through his hair softly. “You know, for somebody who claims he’s ‘vengeance,” He mumbles, a teasing lilt edging into his voice, “You’re awfully cuddly in the morning.”
Bruce goes still. Clark can feel his eyes shift, his heartbeat slowing slightly as he glares up at Clark. When he finally speaks, his voice isn’t defensive, just resigned. “...Clark.”
“What?” Clark asks, all innocence, which he definitely does not have.
“You’re not getting it out of me.”
“Getting what out of you?”
Clark is the picture of cluelessness—an overeager, too-happy grin plastered on his infuriatingly optimistic face, those bright blue eyes shining with mirth.
Bruce huffs, drops his head back down against Clark’s chest. He’s definitely still glaring. He’s probably going to brood about this for a week. “You know exactly what.”
Clark strokes a thumb over Bruce’s shoulder blade, far too pleased with himself in this early hour. “You know, you could say it just once. Just for me?” Clark’s voice drops into a whine, that familiar pleading whine dripping from his tone.
Bruce mutters something unintelligible and aggressively buries his face further into Clark’s chest, which Clark then takes as a very, very lackadaisical maybe. He lets the silence stretch for a while longer, content with Bruce’s soft breathing against him, the usually stoic man melting against him one stubborn inch at a time. It’s the kind of morning that feels suspended—no missions, no alarms blaring in the Watchtower, no Gotham emergency alerts blaring against Bruce’s hip. Just their bed, the sun crawling reluctantly across hardwood, and Bruce Wayne pretending he isn’t the most affectionate person in the entire Justice League.
Clark shifts ever so slightly, just enough to tug the blanket higher around Bruce’s shoulders. He lets out a small sound—half protest, half contentment—and his fingers curl reflexively around Clark’s torso. Things that Bruce will deny, deny, deny until the end of time, but Clark just catalogues them in his brain lovingly.
“You are thinking far too loud for seven am,” Bruce mumbles after a few minutes, slightly muffled by Clark’s chest.
Clark just laughs quietly. “Can’t help it. You’re giving me a lot to work with.”
Bruce’s hand tightens fractionally. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Clark coos. “Don’t think? Don’t talk? Don’t mention how you’ve been holding onto me like I’m a life preserver for the past six hours?”
Bruce sighs—the long-suffering kind, the one that means he’s not actually annoyed, but just pretending to be. “I am not–”
“You totally are,” Clark singsongs, that teasing lilt creeping into his voice again.
It was almost funny how Bruce could act like a petulant teenager sometimes. The stoic, unimpressed Batman, whining in the morning that he was not gripping onto his partner like he was drowning.
“You’re infuriating.”
“And you love me.”
Bruce goes tense for half a heartbeat before relaxing just as quickly. It was weird how he still freaked out over that, even when they’d been together for far too long for Bruce to get cold feet. “Unfortunately.”
Clark beams at that—that was practically a love confession, signed with blood and sealed with a kiss. “I’ll take it.” The sun slips a little higher, creeping past the blinds, landing just across Bruce’s bare shoulder. Clark watches as the light touches every scar, every mark, every bruise, a constellation of battles Bruce had barely talked about. He lifts his hand, tracing a scar—slowly, reverently. Bruce’s breath stutters, and his heartbeat pounds against his chest. Clark softens his touch immediately, eyebrows furrowing together.
“Sensitive?” He teases, though his voice is much gentler now.
“Ticklish,” Bruce lies through his teeth without shame— they both knew the truth, anyway.
“Mm-hm.”
Bruce lifts his head an inch, dark hair a wild mess, eyes half-lidded and irritated only in the fondest ways. The sunlight catches his features, thick, dark lashes casting shadows against pale skin, and a smile graces Clark’s face. “Clark.”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
The eyebrow that Bruce raises could’ve cut steel. “Do not call me–”
“Sweetheart?” Clark repeats with dangerous delight, his fingers still drifting over Bruce’s shoulder tenderly.
Bruce drops his head back onto Clark’s chest as if gravity had dragged him down, just to save him from committing a mariticide before breakfast. “You’re so doing this on purpose.”
“Maaaybe.”
“And you think it’ll make me say it?”
Clark brushes a hand over Bruce’s back again, tracing the line of his spine. “I don’t want you to say it,” he says softly. “I just like seeing you get all worked up about it.”
Bruce makes a low rumble in his chest, which might be a growl or might be the Bat-equivalent of a flustered noise. Hard to tell. Clark kisses the top of his head again, hopefully to soothe both possibilities.
“You know,” Clark muses lightly, “You’re gonna slip up one day and you’re gonna say it without thinking.”
“I am not going to.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
Clark grins. “Then I have the rest of our very, very long lives together to prove you wrong.”
Bruce doesn’t even bother responding. He just pulls the blanket up over his own head in a last-minute ditch attempt to hide from the sunlight and Clark’s relentless smugness. Clark can still feel him trying very hard not to smile.
“Bruce?” Clark asks sweetly, lightly pulling the blanket away from Bruce’s face.
“No.”
Clark laughs again, the vibrations sending a shiver through Bruce. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“Alright. Fine. Temporary truce?”
Bruce shifts enough so Clark can see his eyes; narrowed and tired, but full of fondness and affection. “Fine. Temporary truce.”
“Of course.”
Another moment passes—quiet, comfortable, full of the kind of peace the two never get often.
Then Clark presses a kiss to Bruce’s head.
“Me, one. You, zero.
Bruce groans, drops his head down to Clark’s chest (again) and mutters something that, if Clark slowed the sound down, would probably be Gotham dialect for “I hate you so much.”
Which, in Bruce’s language? Translates to “I love you too.”