DCU
Token
It’s a little after lunchtime when Bruce starts to feel scratchy inside his head; a whirling, chittering sensation just beyond himself that Clark always envisions as flock of bats, disturbed from roost. He reaches back through the jachnarr towards the source, radiating calm and love and support as best he can but for once it does nothing; the scratchy feeling intensifying, if anything, and he withdraws slightly, projecting confusion but otherwise leaving Bruce to his distress. For now.
Outside his head, in the Really Real World, Lois is talking. Not to him, but he should be paying attention anyway and so he does. Taking notes though technically he doesn’t need to, because it results in less questions later when he’ll be able to recite this entire conversation, word for word, right down to the intonations. His writing is neat and sharp; all straight lines and angles, and he knows that it looks nothing like the looping coils from his schooldays.
There’s only one other man in the entire world who knows the reason why.
The interview takes another hour and change, and as they leave the building Clark tries Bruce’s cell, which is turned off, and then his office, where he is informed that there’s a meeting for the Foundation and would you like me to take a message, Mr. Kent sir?
He says no, and hangs up.
Lois eyes him speculatively and he gives her his best gormless smile. “Not upset,” he assures her. “Just curious.”
“This is the… thing?” She makes a gesture in the air around her head which looks suspiciously like ‘crazy’ but Clark knows actually means something else entirely, and he nods. She bugs her eyes and exhales sharply. “Better you than me,” she says, because while Lois and Brucie flirt outrageously she’s only ever met the pure, undiluted version of the man once and says the experience still gives her the creeps.
They have lunch, and Clark checks the jachnarr again.
The unsettled feeling is definitely coming from Bruce, he decides. The bit of Bruce that is not Bruce — the bit Clark calls The Bat in lieu of any other name, though in reality it’s not much like a bat at all — is still asleep, or as close to sleeping as it ever gets, which means that whatever is bothering Bruce comes from Brucie’s life. Clark can’t for the life of him begin to imagine what it could be.
Lois caught him doodling on the phone, once; a cartoon sketch of the way The Bat appears in his head. A tall, black void, featureless bar the slitted glowing eyes and sharp, pointed ears. You worry me sometimes, Smallville, she’d said to his embarrassed grin.
He means to try Bruce again in the afternoon but events conspire against him; three more interviews, a meeting, Lois. By the time he gets home there’s a cyclone in China and he goes there, first, because he knows that no matter how annoyed Bruce is, he will not be grateful in knowing Clark put him ahead of Superman.
There’s less to do in China than there could have been, which is good, so he patrols aimlessly for a while because by now Bruce is as well and attempting to discuss Bruce’s emotional state with Batman would be like trying to teach a tiger the benefits of veganism.
It takes about four hours for the world to still; roughly the time it takes for the first reports of his appearances to flitter down through the internet and out again through the sorts of people who fear his intervention. He cleans up what stragglers he finds and floats for a while, hanging next to a satellite that blindly ignores his presence in favour of the more pressing issue of directing tourists to the nearest hotel.
He hasn’t told Bruce about the ‘Superman Effect’, and if Bruce knows — of course he does, because Bruce knows everything — he hasn’t brought it up. It’s the sort of thing Batman would disapprove of, voiced fervently in an argument they’ve never had to have, the one that would have ended with the realisation that there’s nothing Kal can do about it anyway.
So the issue is stillborn.
It’s three a.m., Gotham time, when Kal falls out of the sky. Bruce is returning from patrol — Kal can hear the tumbler’s engine, feel the leathery shiftings as The Bat folds itself up once more — so he lands in the Cave, changes into the clothes he left here last time, and waits by playing Go against Bruce’s computer.
The computer is locked out, but Clark has his own login. Limited access, of course, but like everything between them these days it’s an artificial boundary; Clark has seen Bruce work here enough to have long since memorised the man’s pass-phrase. All 37 letters. (Less in Kryptonian, of course, but Bruce’s computer still only speaks English. For now.) Clark feels no temptation to look. Bruce has secrets of his own, but Clark knows the secrets he shares outweigh those he keeps by a thousand-fold.
Bruce’s computer runs a super-hardened Unix-like operating system that Clark knows for a fact exists here and only here; the kernel tweaked and recompiled and pared down into brutal efficiency, just like its creator. He calls it Batnix — because prefixing everything Bruce owns with ‘bat’ drives the man subtly crazy — and finding the Go game on it had been surprising. It’s nothing more than the bare minimum of dots and lines, and Clark knows from the ferocious AI that Bruce crafted it himself. So, one day, he renamed the shortcut BatGo.
A month later, Clark had found the source on the internet under the same name.
He’s just lost his third game when the tumbler rolls in and Batman stalks out. He doesn’t bother looking up; in a way, they never leave each other’s presence, which makes exchanging greetings feel… silly, somehow. Still, he feels Bruce’s pleasure at seeing him, mixed with deeper, darker feelings underneath. A fierce territoriality coupled with the wary respect of one great predator eyeing off another. Near as Clark can tell, this is what love means to something like The Bat. He’s felt worse emotions.
Patrol for Bruce tonight must have been quiet, Clark knows, because it’s still mostly Bruce who strips down and steps into the shower. So Clark doesn’t go to him; allows the man the luxury of re-piecing together his own identity. Clark has only seen this process fail once, after one particularly dark and bloody and futile week, when Bruce had buried himself so far and so deep it had taken all of Clark and Kal and Superman together to pull him back. The thought of it still sets his teeth on edge, and he tries not to think what would have returned in his absence. If anything had returned at all.
He’s is just scraping through in his fourth game when Bruce finally emerges, clad only in a plush black robe and slippers. Clark feels strong, scarred arms descend over the back of his chair and around his shoulders, and he nuzzles his cheek against them appreciatively. Bruce sighs; long and weary, still discontent but less so now with the reality of Clark warm against his skin.
“So,” Clark says after a moment. “Do I get to know why you’ve been giving me a headache for the last fifteen hours?” He’s teasing and knows Bruce can feel that, finally feels some of the scratchiness in that whirling mind subside.
“The Foundation is holding a ball next month,” Bruce says, “to raise money for the victims of the June fires.”
“A good cause,” Clark says, because he was there and he remembers. He feels Bruce stir as the memory rises and suddenly he knows what the problem is.
Bruce hesitates a moment before pressing on. “There was some discussion about inviting Superman as guest of honour, due to the help he provided in containing the blaze.”
Clark feels a moment of… not fear, exactly, but something close to it. “You don’t want me there?”
Another chittering flutter through the jachnarr. “It’s not that. It’s just, these endless balls and parties and fundraisers… it’s hard enough when you’re not there at all. Having you there but completely untouchable will be… worse.”
And this is a surprise to Clark; the most he’s ever heard Bruce complain about life as Brucie. He’s knows, intellectually, that Bruce finds the existence tedious in the extreme but knowing that and hearing Bruce actually express it are two completely separate things.
He says, “You know I’ll be there. As whomever you want.”
Bruce just sighs. It’s no contest and they both know it. Work always, always, comes first. It’s the only way they can be together.
Much later, when Bruce lies sleeping beside him — still and sated and content, for a while at least — Kal thinks.
Superman is no stranger to functions. It’s one of the things he’s made himself do, to keep himself accessible, connected, and when he has to he knows how to shake hands and smile for the cameras. But it occurs to him, then, that Superman has never attended anything at the same time as Bruce has. They’ve been seen together in public only once before, back in the early days, before he knew Bruce the way he does now. Bruce had been pure Brucie then, without a hint of irony, blandly grateful but otherwise unimpressed with Superman, worried instead that his calls to the cellphone of one Clark Kent were going unanswered. He smiles at the memory of the deception, so quintessentially Bruce that he cannot feel any lingering resentment and he shifts his hold gently on the object of his musings, receiving a contented sigh in return. There is not a single other soul on the planet Bruce trusts enough to be this close to him while he sleeps, and Kal knows he is a very lucky man indeed.
So. Superman’s first appearance for the Foundation. It’s important to him, and not just because of Bruce’s discontent. Truth be told, he shares that feeling; there’s something about the notion of having to pretend to be indifferent — to pretend not to care about the slithering eyes that caress Brucie when he’s unleashed alone, to not be able to claim or possess — something about that which he finds… unappealing. Bruce is his, beloved of the House of El (as if in proof the body next to him curls itself closer) and he grates against the necessity that keeps them apart.
Surely there’s something he can do, some small token he can bring to show Bruce they are always together, even when they are apart. Something he would do for no-one else…
In the end, Bruce takes Rachel. He rarely attends anything alone, even when Clark isn’t with him; he finds he needs some kind of buffer against the feeding frenzy of unattached young women (and men now, too) looking for an easy ride or a notorious fuck. Occasionally he finds the attention amusing, but most often he doesn’t and for those occasions he has a list of half a dozen women who in the past have all been quite happy to escort him out and go home alone. Rachel is the top of that list and though he doesn’t call on her often — she finds Brucie slightly creepy, so he tries not to inflict it on her unduly — he has called on her tonight. He knows she’s only here because of Superman; they’ve never said anything specific to her but she’s a smart girl and, besides, she’s met Lois. The idea of the two women together frightens him, sometimes, so he generally tries not to think about it.
She glitters next to him as they circuit the pavilions, greeting guests and benefactors and the families of survivors. Making small talk. Acting dull, though not quite as insipid or boorish these days. People say Clark has rubbed off on him. When they’re being kind.
At five past, Richard and Lois walk in and Rachel extracts him from a group of investment bankers to greet the family. He shakes Richard’s hand and kisses Lois’, then crouches down to greet Jason. The boy looks up at him with blues eyes just slightly too sharp to be human and regards him critically. Bruce tries not to feel nervous; he doesn’t know what the boy knows, and that bothers him. But Kal’s family is his family, no matter how estranged, and he pushes down his unease just in time to receive a brief, unexpected hug. So he asks about school and that launches Richard into a string of gushing, paternal accolades to which Bruce express his heartfelt awe. He likes Richard — much more than the other man realises — because Richard took Lois and that gave Bruce Clark, which is a debt he will never be able to repay.
The Lane-Whites drift off as Jim Gordon and his family drift in, so Bruce grits his teeth and prepares himself for the encounter. Dealing with Gordon as Brucie is always… awkward, not something he enjoys doing, and just as he’s thinking that he feels Rachel’s hand tighten on his arm and a stunned hush descends over the crowd.
Kal-El is here.
Bruce can’t see him from this angle but he doesn’t need to; the presence fills the space like the smell of winter and, oddly, it really is Kal and not Superman. That’s… unexpected.
Beside him he hears Rachel draw in breath sharply and murmur, “Wow. Did you…?”
Bruce turns. For a beat he’s afraid his heart has stopped and then, a moment later, the only thing he seems to be able to say is,”Wow.”
Kal has descended into the gardens from above, the Gotham twilight painting the sky rich and vibrant in his wake and that would have been a dramatic an entrance enough, except that Kal is wearing… he’s wearing…
Not his usual costume.
Bruce hears a woman behind him murmur, “… like an alien prince!” and he can’t quite muster enough cynicism to push the comparison down. Kal’s in robes, cobalt and carmine and gold and Bruce has never seen anything like it. Ever. He feels the pit of his stomach drop and in turn feels, somewhere just outside himself, Kal’s odd sensation of unease smooth out into joyful satisfaction. Bruce thinks, You bastard!
He means it in the nicest possible way.
There is nothing in the world but Kal for a dizzying eternity until the pressure on his arm shatters the spell and he realises Rachel is giving him a Meaningful Look.
Right. Be a host.
Kal is already greeting people when they approach and Bruce puts on his best, most charming voice and says, “Superman! Thank you for coming.” It comes out sounding more than a little wobbly, especially at the end when Kal turns and pierces him with gently glowing eyes as vast and as alien as the Arctic sky.
“Mr. Wayne,” Kal acknowledges. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for the families left destitute by this terrible disaster.” It’s only familiarity that allows Bruce to read the irony in Kal’s expression, the tells so inhuman that for a moment he wonders what everyone else sees. It’s been so long since Kal at his most alien was something Bruce found suspicious and indecipherable.
“Ah, well, it’s the least I can do.” They shake hands to the chittering chorus of cameras, the formal action feeling decidedly odd. Kal is too tall, Bruce suddenly realises, and when he flicks his eyes down he sees that the robe’s gently fluttering hem doesn’t quite touch the ground. The whole thing extends a good foot below Kal’s feet and with a shock Bruce realises the outfit is designed for floating. It’s so audaciously stylish — even Kal’s hair is different, much wilder than usual — that Bruce is hit with the sudden realisation that this is Clark Kent, and has to bite back a laugh at the delicious incongruity. He says, “This is a new look for you.”
Kal gives a sly smile. “I believe national costume is appropriate for white tie events?”
“Quite.” Bruce returns the expression, mind whirling with questions — the top of the list is currently why haven’t I seen you in this before? — and frustrated by distance. A single handshake is hardly enough, he wants to reach and and to touch and, what the hell? He’s supposed to be a chronic hedonist, right?
He can see at least three different fabrics and he wants to feel them all — against him and around him — but he settles for running his fingers across a section of the luxurious, carmine outer cloak. It feels nothing like Superman’s usual one — which of course Bruce has already explored, in detail — but rather thick and heavy, a cross between velvet and suede. Bruce can feel a thrill of expectant lust run through the jachnarr — though Kal’s expression is completely impassive — and he knows that the game is on.
They’re saved, ironically enough, by Lois. “Superman? Mr. Wayne? Some questions if you don’t mind?”
The spell doesn’t quite break, but it subsides and for a moment Bruce is standing in front of Clark — he almost expects the man to just drop out of the sky, but he doesn’t — blinking like a stunned haddock and scrunching his nose in a futile attempt to push up glasses that aren’t currently there. It’s only momentary — by the time they turn there will be no trace of it — but it nevertheless floods Bruce with pleasure to have seen something so unguarded, so intimate.
They answer Lois’ questions, then someone else’s and a third set and then ten minutes of photographs. Bruce’s smile is starting to grate and he can tell Kal is trying very hard not to burst out laughing every time he has to say ‘Mr. Wayne’ in response to anything.
The impromptu press conference goes for a good forty minutes before they’re finally able to escape back into the crowd; though in Kal’s case Bruce thinks that perhaps ‘escape’ implies more subtlety than the man is currently capable of executing. Rachel re-joins him and Bruce pretends to listen to talk of celebrities and stock markets while simultaneously watching Kal, three kids on each arm, float around lazily to the sound of gleeful shrieks and more popping flashbulbs.
Bruce doesn’t understand children; it’s one of the points they differ on and it hurts, sometimes, because no matter the issues with gender or species, Bruce knows Kal’s technology is sufficient to provide them with a son or daughter if they so wished it. But every time the thought strays into his mind all he can think about is one frayed line, one lucky shot, and he knows he can’t do it. Not for Kal, not for anyone.
He must be watching too attentively, Bruce realises, because he feels Rachel’s hand squeeze his arm and once again swings his focus around into what turns out to be a high-paced discussion on the effectiveness of salmon farming. Three minutes and the talk reaches a critical sticking point over the most effective way to keep stock from jumping up into overflow pipes as part of a futile effort to spawn. Rachel’s practically catatonic so Bruce lets her go when she catches Lois’ eye. He’s not sure he wants the two of them comparing any notes but forcing an extended lecture on aquaculture is cruel and unusual punishment, even by Batman’s standards. Eventually, the salmon swim out only to be replaced by an equally thrilling discussion on kelp farming and Bruce suddenly feels overwhelmed by the desire to consume copious quantities of champagne. So he excuses himself discreetly and chases down a waiter. She’s standing near the buffet table when he catches her, so he decides to pursue that while he’s here and it’s about this point that he feels a dark shadow looming over his shoulder.
“Must be an interesting feeling for you, Brucie.”
He winces inwardly, but when he turns his face is schooled into vapid lecherousness. “Vicki, how lovely to see you. You look absolutely stunning, my dear.” He kisses her hand with an exaggerated flourish though he can tell Vale’s not buying a second of it.
“Not quite as stunning as our guest of honour, it seems,” she says drily, and Bruce follows her eyes to where’s Kal’s group of adoring children has apparently suffered a coup at the hands of a gaggle of too-thin, too-tanned, too-blonde women. He’s being dreadfully polite but Bruce can feel his panic as Clark’s natural shyness threatens to overwhelm Kal’s stoic hero façade. The sight is mildly amusing — Bruce is used to seeing the meat-market from the inside, not the out — but he knows he can’t leave Clark to suffer and is trying to formulate a plan for gentle extraction when Vale notices his expression and says, “Jealous, Brucie?”
“Huh?” Not the most eloquent response, but at the moment he’s battling panic as his mind instantly jumps to the worst conclusion—
“Usually you’re the centre of attention at these things.”
Oh.
He regards Vale critically for a moment; she’s pretty and sharp and maybe in another universe he’d take her to bed. As it is, he just turns on his most empty smile and says, “You’re right. Time to restore order to the universe, don’t you think?”
He grabs another glass of champagne from the still-hovering waitress and glides his way across the room. Kal’s eyes catch his and Bruce doesn’t need the jachnarr to feel the silent cry of, ‘Help me!’ He’s happy to oblige, the sea of women parting as they watch Kal watching him.
“Superman.” The name feels strange in his mouth in a way he’s not quite sure he likes. He tries it again. “Superman, a drink.” He offers the glass with a delicate flourish. Kal eyes it like kryptonite.
“Mr. Wayne, I’m sorry but I don’t—”
“Nonsense.” Which it is; Clark can drink like a fish when he puts his mind to it, which is admittedly not often but Bruce stands by his point nonetheless. “For a toast, you need a drink.”
Kal hesitates for a moment before peeling back a smile that is not quite Superman’s. “For a toast,” he says, and when he takes the glass from Bruce’s hand their fingers touch like lightning. The women watch them, vultures circling a battle between two great predators, waiting for the bloodied remains of the loser. Except this is a dance, not a fight, and by the end of the night there would be no losers. At least none Bruce cares about.
He smiles and turns, tapping a ring against his glass until the room stills and all eyes are on him. Or rather on Kal, really, because with the way the crystals catch the light at the edges of his robe how any eyes could not focus on him is a mystery.
Kal is wearing his mzhao-nvao in plain sight; the thought makes Bruce’s heart skip ever so slightly, feeling the weight of his own hanging warm from its chain, concealed beneath his shirt. On Kal, it’s just another piece of glimmering, alien crystal. But Bruce knows and—
People are staring at him. Toast, right.
So he proposes a toast, the words slipping out without much direct input from his brain; praising the resilience of the survivors and the heroism of the fire-fighters. Kal cuts in by mentioning the generosity of the Foundation and the benefactors and Bruce resists the temptation to rolls his eyes; as if tonight were actually about the fire, as if it were something other than yet another way for the area’s super-elite to soothe their consciences with expensive champagne and a quick fuck in a closet with an exotic near-stranger. He feels Kal’s amusement at his cynicism as the room raises their glasses and drinks, before turning back to talk of salmon farms and illicit sexcapades.
Now that they’re close again, Bruce is painfully reluctant to leave Kal’s side and he knows the feeling is mutual. So they make small-talk for a while, amusing each other with smooth-faced lies, and Kal almost gets him by saying, “Clark tells me you’re very ticklish.” Which sets the women around them cooing and Bruce shifting in discomfort at the sudden heaviness between his thighs. Kal’s smugness is only softened by his own echoing arousal and they spend the next five minutes pretending not to devour each other by sight alone. People drift in and out of their circle, hoping for the lustre to rub off and at some point Bruce looks up and sees only friends; Rachel and the Lane-Whites and the Gordons. Kal is kneeling an inch off the ground telling alien fairy-tales to Jason and Gordon’s little girl. Rachel and Barbara lament late-nights and shoe-string salaries. Lois and Richard and Jim edge warily around politics. Of all the people here, they’re the only ones who feel real. Everyone else is blurry, half-sketched and simply-animated; background characters for this central tableaux, drawn together by by the gravitational forces of legend.
Bruce panics. Fakes a call on his cell and is halfway across the room before anyone can ask what’s wrong, mind a whirl of connections and suspicion and what if someone noticed? Christ, Gordon’s kid isn’t even in school and Jason’s not even ten and they’re just kids, kids and civilians and—
Away from the party, between a hedge and a fountain, he stops. Forces himself to breathe, to remember that they only look suspicious from the inside. He knows Rachel who knows Gordon from work and Lois through Clark and of course friends would wind up standing together in a roomful of strangers. That’s what people do. Normal people. Or so he’s heard.
There’s no breeze tonight, but the grass stirs anyway. Bruce hears the glassy chiming of crystals bumping against each other gently.
“Are you all right?”
He breathes out once, sharp and ragged, Kal’s presence cool and soothing against the edges of his mind. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m all right.”
There’s a soft fwap noise beside him as Kal’s feet finally touch the ground, luxurious robes pooling like blood and midnight around him. Bruce stares at the shimmering fabric, and it occurs to him that the party is far away and there’s no-one around but them.
Very slowly, he says, “Did anyone see you leave?”
Kal laughs. “What do you think? But I wouldn’t worry about it; Superman runs off without warning all the time. No-one will get suspicious.”
“This is Gotham. Everyone is suspicious.”
Kal is very close, his heat and presence seeping through Bruce’s suit, right into the deep dark core of him; want and desire flooding his senses, echoed back and forth like a reflection between two mirrors. A slight shifting of cloth. “Well then,” Kal says, “all the salacious gossip will do wonders for your image.”
A slight scowl. “Not yours. And Clark will have to listen—”
“Clark already has to listen.” Kal’s lips are a hairsbreadth from his ear, his warm breath teasing and caressing. “To all kinds of things, to be the target of so many pitying glances.”
Bruce’s eyes close against something that feels very much like pain. Starts to say something until Kal cuts him off.
“And I have it on very good authority that Clark finds it all very amusing. Everyone feeling so sorry for the dorky, clueless hick; how can he possibly think he’s the only one to share Bruce Wayne’s bed. The only one to hear this.” A quick curl of tongue around his ear and Bruce can’t quite suppress the tail end of a whimper; his legs feel like jelly and the weight between them feels like lead and he falls backwards, is folded inside something a bit like velvet and a bit like suede but mostly a lot like neither, his hands grabbing mad fistfuls of the cloth draped luxuriously over thick, steely thighs because finally — finally — he can touch.
Kal’s strong fingers close around his neck, thumb rubbing circles in the hollow of his throat; where the meshth would be, and it doesn’t matter than he’s the wrong species and the wrong gender because the thought of Kal’s hands — hands that could rip him in two — touching him so gently in such a vulnerable spot rips a low, guttural moan from his throat. The trust is a drug and he’s shaking with jittery withdrawals, rubbing his back against Kal’s chest, the alien fabrics around him soft and slick like nothing on earth, and his hands run wantonly over gently flared hips and a tight waist, tracing each individual muscle, not quite a human’s but so, so good all the same. Because this is Kal, and no-one knows this secret but him.
“Rao, Brrus… olokyn… khahtiv ovon…”
Kal’s voice is as rich and a lush as his robes, and Bruce turns into the sound, finds himself captured by too-soft lips and too-strong arms, and his finally-free hands are everywhere. Definitely three different fabrics. The heavy material of the cloak, thick and luxurious; Kal’s skin under his fingers. The outer robes are softer, more pliant; Kal’s lips against his. And finally the inner robe, smooth and buttery; the secret parts inside, the ones only Bruce has touched.
Somehow, he finds breath between kisses. “God, Kal. You’re incredible. You lo— nngh!” His mind blanks as a strong thigh pushes its way between his own, and Bruce can’t seem to stop the way his hips rock desperately against it. Can’t seem to remember why he’d want to. “You look… uh, look…” His brain feels short-circuited. He tries something else instead, working a hand down to where he can feel Kal’s own arousal — huge and hard and sheathed in silk — and traces the heavy shape of it.
Kal makes sounds that are nothing close to human at all; a high-pitched keen, a series of low clicks. Good sounds, so Bruce works on coaxing out more with his tongue and his hands. His right between half-opened thighs, his left sliding up Kal’s back to knead the place between his shoulder blades. The one that drives him wild and now it’s Kal whose legs seem about to fold but that’s okay, because the air will catch them and then they can make love in the stars.
“I’ve been watching you,” Kal murmurs, and Bruce isn’t sure if he’s speaking English or Kryptonian any more. Isn’t sure that it matters. “Watching, nnj, you move through the room. Predator. They think you’re so soft, so simple… don’t see what’s right in front of them. So blind.”
“But you know, don’t you?” Chuckling lowly, he runs his tongue up the thick, golden column of Kal’s throat. Buries his tongue in the hollow; not as sensitive on a male, but Kal still shudders so hard Bruce is sure some geologist, somewhere, sees it.
“Zz-zz-zhi-ii, Brrus… nah khahtiv rrup.”
“Zhi,” Bruce agrees. “Nah khahp.”
He wants to go; Kal’s body is tense and trembling under his, so close to breaking and Bruce wants him broken. Broken and remade and aching to return the favour. The Fortress will do, or perhaps Clark’s apartment; basking in the delicious dichotomy of Kal in all his alien splendour, splashed against the mundane human nicknacks of—
“Damn now there’s the hottest headline I will never write!”
Kal jumps, and Bruce can’t blame him, cursing the expedience of nosy reporters. They pull back and Clark is blinking at him owlishly, hand going to the bridge of his nose in a nervous gesture that is so quintessentially him that Bruce is overcome with the sudden urge to throttle Lane to death for the interruption.
Though by the look she’s giving him, he suspects Rachel would try and stop him.
“L-Lois, what—?”
She rolls her eyes. “Someone has to keep you two out of trouble. The two belles of the ball vanish within minutes of each other; people notice you know.”
Bruce can’t quite help the bolt of smug satisfaction, and Kal — who’s just about managed to pull himself back together — rolls his eyes, throws his hands up in a too-human gesture. “Don’t encourage him,” he warns Lois. “You know what he’s like.”
“You sleeping on the couch is your problem, not mine.” Lois is unrepentant, of course. “C’mon, hero, the kittens are rescued, back to the party.” She pushes him towards the music and the marquees in the distance and Bruce suppresses a laugh when Kal actually trips on his too long robes, catching himself in the air before he can hit the ground in a very un-Superman-like heap. Kal straightens his robes indignantly and shoots Lois a glare and in that moment Bruce knows he’s in love. Rachel is practically shaking beside him, eyes too bright, her hand doing nothing to hide her amusement. Bruce reaches out to catch Kal’s arm, kisses him gently on the cheek — a promise for later — and gets a shy smile in return. Then Kal is gone; the swell of sound in the distance heralding his reappearance.
“Okay, playboy, your turn.”
He feels Rachel’s arm wind around his on one side, Lois on the other. Placidly allows himself to be frog-marched back to the glittering rich and nervous survivors. Muses, “Perhaps I could fake my own death…”
“I think you only get one of those,” Rachel reminds him.
Conceding defeat, Bruce allows himself to be dragged back into the light.
He’s not released back to the dark until well after three a.m., Gotham and the moon the only illumination as he slides through his bedroom, slowly divesting himself of the trappings of Brucie; coat and tie and cufflinks. The dim light a thief of saturation, leaving him wrapped in midnight and crystal and carmine, heart fluttering in desperate anticipation.
He is not alone. The French doors to the balcony are thrown wide, curtains still as shrouds, and beyond them he can make out a hole in the sky, pirouetted on the parapet.
Kal watches him as he approaches, eyes bright and alien, making no attempt to conceal his desire. Bruce swallows, hard, and oh it’s been years now and the sight is still enough to drive him wild. Probably always will be, just as it will always be a leap of faith, throwing himself at the mercy of such incredible otherworldly power. Bruce has built his life around control, but here and now all that means nothing; Kal will strip him raw and devour him from within and Bruce will beg him to do it.
“Kal…”
Powerful arms unfold and Kal extends one towards him, palm up, inviting. Bruce takes it, knows Kal can hear his heart skip a beat and somehow the knowing of the knowing makes it the most erotic thing in the world. Half-hard already and Kal’s fingers on his are a kiss, the strange power that wraps around Bruce and lifts him up a promise, the fit of his body against Kal’s a future, the touch of their lips a supernova. Kal tastes like ice and apples and Bruce is boneless, hours and hours of waiting leaving him open and ravenous, devouring everything Kal pours into him.
And then, Bruce’s lips are alone. He murmurs in protest, opening his eyes at Kal’s breathless chuckle.
“So, did it work?” Kal looks oddly pensive, and Bruce scowls.
“What?”
“The, y’know.” He makes an abortive gesture towards himself.
Bruce gets it, and is incredulous. “The clothes? Did they work? Jesus Christ, Kal, you’ve been driving me crazy all night.” He’s not angry, not wrapped here on the cusp of what he’s been wanting for hours.
Kal gives him a sheepish grin that is half-Clark. “Oh,” he says. “Good… good. I wanted to, I don’t know. You seemed so upset, and I wanted you to know… it meant something to me, too.”
“I’d say your plan worked.” Which earns him a brilliant Clark-grin that fades slowly into something deeper and heavier and more Kal. Bruce feels them leave the balcony, can see the manor dropping away beneath their feet.
“It’s been driving me crazy, too,” Kal confesses, breath hot against Bruce’s cheek. “Being so close, not being able to touch…”
“And now we’re alone.”
Kal’s only reply is a high, keening moan; head falling back as Bruce’s mouth works against his throat, Gotham spreading out beneath them in a quilt of black and gold. Because the hunt has been long, but at last they prey is caught. So they rise, the only movement against the infinite sky, pulling themselves upwards, to make love amongst the stars.