for knightbynight: For now and hereafter...

[stands_for_hope]

[some time after the events here]

Superman and Batman were partners in more than a work sense. Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent were an adorable (if mildly ridiculous) couple. Kal-El of Krypton and a man who defied any definition outside of the single letter 'B' made time on weekends, worked around world crises and teenage tempers, and occasionally fell into bed together when the stars aligned. Thankfully, they aligned relatively often.

Wayne Manor received a delivery of organic produce and baked goods once a week from a small, independent farm in the heartland. Lois Lane was a little less likely to agree with snide comments about the uselessness of Bruce Wayne, especially after seeing the utter madness that was Clark's desk after a few weeks. The texting habits of a certain blond teenager in Kansas rose sharply... and in parallel to that of a certain former street punk in Gotham.

Life was... well, it was good, even if it was also Life. Until it wasn't. Until everything changed.

They all had enemies, of course. But the problem with Superman's enemies was that they were coherent enough to decide to team up. And crazy enough to use the kind of weaponry that could make whole cars just vaporize into nothing.

Crazy enough to point that weapon at a somewhat-pinned Batman and a Wonder Woman who was digging him out from the rock. Crazy enough to point that weapon at Batman.

Bruce.

B.

Clark didn't even make the choice. His heart made it for him. The beam shot out of the Toyman's mechanical monstrosity and Clark flew, the pain of the beam itself nothing on the fact that he was leaving Bruce behind. That his vision of them as old men together would never happen. That he was leaving behind a world that needed him.

The guilt that, if it meant saving them, saving him, he didn't regret a thing.

Comments

[stands_for_hope]

Clark didn't respond for a moment before slowly, he started to nod. A moment more and he let himself tip over until he was resting his head in Bruce's lap, eyes closed.

"I just need to settle out," he said again. "I'll be all right. I'll be all right in a couple of days."

[knightbynight]

Bruce settled his hand in Clark's hair, slow and light and careful, but eventually having his entire hand there, fingers lightly threaded through the too-long strands.

"You will be."

Maybe not all right and maybe not in a couple of days, but he would be.

[stands_for_hope]

If Bruce didn't want Clark going anywhere, he may have discovered the best method ever at ensuring it. Clark melted, at the words, the touch... Bruce's presence and his heartbeat and his breath.

"Alfred will probably appreciate one thing to come out of the whole mess," Clark observed, his voice hazy and warm. The seemingly perpetual twitchiness from earlier had evened out, at least for the moment.

[knightbynight]

"I can think of a few things Alfred will appreciate," Bruce murmured, "but which one are you thinking of?"

[stands_for_hope]

"Not much of a vegetarian anymore," he observed before letting his eyes slide up to see if he'd gotten a smile out of Bruce.

[knightbynight]

Bruce wasn't sure what to do with that, though Clark looking up at him like that did drag a faint smile to his face. "He'll probably feed you vegetarian, anyway, and just be glad there's another person here who will eat real food." He brushed his thumb over Clark's cheek.

[stands_for_hope]

"You eat my mother's rhubarb pie," he pointed out. Then his focus was taken up entirely by the brush of Bruce's thumb, chasing it lazily to press a kiss there.

"Are any of the windows in my room facing east?"

[knightbynight]

"I did, and I enjoyed it." He scratched lightly at Clark's scalp and just gave him a little more stimulation but still very, very gently.

"I don't know about the windows." He'd never been in that room. "I think so, if Alfred is half as intelligent as I think he is."

[stands_for_hope]

"Then let's go down there," he proposed. "We can open all the windows and let in the light. Sit on a nice rug. Or the bed." He started to make a soft, indistinct sort of rumble in his contentment before it turned into a sigh.

"Before I melt to the floor."

[knightbynight]

"Roof," Bruce corrected, and gently disentangled his hand from Clark's hair. Once Clark moved, he stood up to go. " Still not as good an option as a bed or carpet." Maybe Clark would even get some sleep.

[stands_for_hope]

"If you're on top of it, it's also a floor," Clark answered before pushing himself to his feet and dusting off. His skin had still been damp and some of the grit from the roof/floor had stuck. "What's the easiest way to get there from here? Stairs again?"

[knightbynight]

"The easiest way is over the edge of the roof and through a window. The least likely to cause damage are the stairs." He let his fingers brush the small of Clark's back and headed back toward the door and stairs. No sense breaking windows in his own house.

[stands_for_hope]

"Then the stairs it is," he agreed as he followed Bruce down. He stayed close, unwilling to be too far from the other man for the moment. He just needed to know he could reach out and touch him, or vice versa. Nothing too claustrophobic.

"Do you know if... well, who cleared out my apartment? I'm assuming it was cleared out. I was only just on time for the rent as it was."

[knightbynight]

"No one cleared out your apartment," Bruce said, with a thread of anger in his voice again. "I paid the rent. It's still there for you to clear out and move when you're ready."

People had tried to push the issue, they most certainly had. Because everyone else thought Clark was dead. Fuck them and fuck that.

[stands_for_hope]

He considered something to say to that before pursing his lips and deciding on

"Thank you. I know... whoever it would have been would have been someone I trusted, but it's nice that no one did."

He stepped a little closer.

"Then again, you've seen all the embarrassing pictures. Well, the college embarassing pictures. I'm amazed you got away from that farm without my mother showing you baby shots."

[knightbynight]

Bruce kept walking, though he at no time attempted to out distance Clark or increase the space between them. He even stopped briefly to decrease it with Clark before resuming, but he was.

Yeah, that was a sore spot.

"It had nothing to do with whether you trusted them or not. If you were actually dead it wouldn't have mattered. You weren't, therefore your apartment didn't need to be packed up in the first place."

He may have threatened to set fire to anyone who tried to get through Clark's apartment door.

[stands_for_hope]

He took a longer step then, put his hand smoothly on Bruce's shoulder, making sure to keep his own movements obvious and careful.

"Thank you. For having faith in me."

[knightbynight]

Bruce turned his head to turn toward Clark and look him square in the eye. "That wasn't faith. Faith would have required I, at any point, had so much as a glimmer of doubt that you were alive. I didn't, and I had more than enough evidence to back that up."

He'd had his doubts, as time went on. He was human.

[stands_for_hope]

"I appreciate it all the same," he said peaceably, acknowledging the difference with a nod and a squeeze to Bruce's shoulder. "And the apartment thing."

He breathed out in a low huff.

"Do you know if anyone gave a story for Clark Kent?" He met Bruce's eyes again. "Did you?"

[knightbynight]

"Clark Kent suffered a skiing injury and is being treated by private physicians in Switzerland, where the injury occurred. He'll come back when he is sufficiently recovered.

Bruce Wayne will go pick him up, of course." Which would be a 'vacation' for him, while he was absent from the Manor without having gone any damned where. He'd just send the jet .

[stands_for_hope]

"Well, he is a terrible klutz," Clark mused thoughtfully. "And taking care of my injuries in Switzerland is very sweet. It's definitely the kind of thing to make a man think of changing his place of residence."

Which was when he tilted his chin towards the hallway they were on.

"Which one?"

[knightbynight]

"It's directly across from my room."

Clark had been in his room. Not that his room was... impressive, by the standards people might expect of him, but it was there. And - he was maybe testing Clark a little by not telling him more than that, or moving to show Clark where it was.

"We'll move you in and Bruce and Clark can get serious, for at least a while. There's always the option of a break up if you decide to move back out so you have more space."

[stands_for_hope]

Clark didn't even pause. He headed immediately across from Bruce's own room, opening the door to see a well-appointed bedroom with a black walnut bed that looked like it had seen World War II and won it, deep red bedding with dark gold accents that somehow managed to both match and compliment the frame, and a closet that appeared to be full of clothing in what would turn out to be Clark's size. A small set of toiletries had been bundled up in a small basket on the dresser beside the bed, and there was even a mint on the pillow with a small folded card that bore his name in Alfred's precise script.

Clark glanced back at Bruce as if to repeat 'terrifying psychic abilities, potential League material' before stepping in and heading straight for the bed. The towel was pulled off and folded on one of the chairs before he got there and slid onto the top of the comforter to snatch the note with a smile.

"Okay. Maybe he likes me a little."

[knightbynight]

Bruce hadn't looked at the room at all, but when he did he was impressed. He was deeply, deeply impressed by how beautifully Clark this room was, how well suited it was to him and how prepared it was to take the man in wholesale.

He really did owe Alfred so much more than he could ever give.

He checked the closet and the clothes, just because he was curious but what he was most interested in was the note.

"I told you he liked you." Ages ago. "What does the card say?"

[stands_for_hope]

Clark took a moment to read it himself, the simplicity of it making a warm smile break out his face as he pulled the mint over and popped it in his mouth. When Bruce asked what was on the note, he just opened the paper to show two words:

Welcome Home.