stands_for_hope | for knightbynight: For now and hereafter...

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for knightbynight: For now and hereafter...

[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.

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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.

Bruce smiled. It was a crooked, surprisingly sweet, not at all playboy or Batman kind of smile. It was just... soft and sweet and fond.

For a moment.

"I need to give the man a raise." Alfred had a lot of money, already. Not the point, the sentiment was.

He looked at Clark and then inclined his head toward the bed. "Are you going to lie down or not?"

Clark looked from Bruce to the windows to the bed.

"First," he said, pushing himself back up to walk over to the windows. They were, in fact, east facing. That just happened to be how it worked in this wing, apparently. Convenient for Clark, both for his own enjoyment and for watching Bruce try and hide under pillows and Clark himself when the icky terrible sunlight came for him.

The heavy curtains were drawn back, then the blinds, and Clark took a moment to enjoy the sunlight again before turning around to head for the bed. Then, he didn't so much slip on as dive for it. And--ooo. The bedding was really very nice. Soft.

"...I'd give him a raise but his paycheck's probably bigger than mine. Either way, I think I'm going to spend the next conversation I have with him thanking him profusely."

Then he looked over at Bruce and tilted his head in invitation.

There was a naked Clark in a red bed. Of course a look and a head tilt were all the invitation he needed, though he didn't dive into the bed, just went to it and stretched out on his side in it.

"His paycheck is bigger than yours," he confirmed, a bit absently. "Thank him if you want to. Send him flowers. Tap dance on the ceiling. He'll take it all about the same."

Clark could appreciate a Bruce stretched out on his bed in nothing much more than exercise pants. For his part, he folded his hands behind his head and leaned back to enjoy the bed and the sun and his new room.

"One of those, huh? I guess I'll have to figure out something really nice. There's always something..."

The sunlight int he room seemed to make the red of the bedding glow. Bruce didn't much like it, since it was also streaming into his eyes, but the view was well worth any discomfort associated with his preference for being nocturnal.

He rested his hand lightly on Clark's chest, and just felt his heart beating.

"Or you could always trust that he did it because he wanted you to feel welcome and 'repay' him by just feeling welcomed instead of indebted."

Clark actually blinked at that, looking down at the hand with a smile that couldn't be called anything but 'melty' before looking up with a tilt of his head.

"I don't mean to repay him like a bank," Clark said with a low chuckle that Bruce could probably feel. "I mean... he showed a lot of care and this was so kind. I'd like to do something that might make him feel anything like how walking into this room made me feel."

He leaned up and took the opportunity to kiss the portion of Bruce's arm he happened to have in reach.

"No debt. Promise."

"The best way you can achieve that is to use the room, eat and enjoy his food, and know that you're home. If something else occurs to you, seize the moment, but don't feel as though you owe him more than being happy here." Or as happy as Clark could be. "He isn't that person."

"I will defer to your experienced judgment," Clark said. Because right now, he didn't have the bandwidth to sweat the small stuff. And almost everything was 'small stuff' right this moment.

"Though if that's the case, the job is fifty percent done."

Bruce kissed Clark's temple, because it was within easy reach, and curled himself a bit more comfortably around a very naked, very alive, very present man he'd missed a hell of a lot.

"You've got time to get the rest of the way there."

Clark's arm slipped around Bruce's shoulder and he let himself lean up against Bruce. He let his head rest lightly against Bruce's before asking--

"And what about you? How do I make you feel as good as I do right now?"

He could think of ways and the answer, though glib was on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it back, because the last thing he wanted to pressure Clark for was sex. Actually, he didn't want to apply any pressure to Clark at all right now, to do anything except be there, and keep breathing and soaking up sun. To heal. To rest.

Those things didn't fit the standard definition of pressure.

He tilted his head just far enough to catch Clark's mouth in a soft, painfully gentle, kiss when what he wanted to do was press in and make himself believe in Clark's reality. His lip was still a bit sore from the earlier kiss, anyway.

"You're here. You came back. You asked to stay here. You already have."

He couldn't help that the sweet kiss made his heart flutter, or that his arm gave a soft squeeze around Bruce where he was holding him.

"Good. Good."

He let his head drop back against the pillows as his eyes slipped close. He wasn't sleeping, didn't need sleep right now, especially with the sun shining on him, but his muscles were relaxing and he felt like maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to deal with the world tomorrow.

After a moment--

"I'm trying to figure out if I really want sex or it's just the urge to wrap myself around you and never let go."

"And I'm leaving you alone to figure that out without input from me. If it was left to me we'd have fucked in the shower."

He paused, just a moment, and slipped his arm around Clark to rest at his back.

"It can wait. You're here now. There is no rush."

That just made him think of warm, slick skin; Bruce under his hands, the taste of his kiss, the exact texture of his hand wrapped around him. He made a soft noise of want and lifted a hand to adjust himself a little.

"Who's rushing?" he asked with a waggle of eyebrows before he couldn't help but grin. "Though I think I figured out my answer."

Bruce lifted his eyebrows when Clark waggled his and looked down at Clark.

"I think I just implied you didn't want it and you're too stubborn to ever take the easy way out."

No he didn't. He was smirking a little. He was also stubbornly not making a single, solitary move. Why? Because he loved Clark, but he was kind of a dick.

Clark seemed to consider that for a moment before deciding that blunt honesty was best.

"No, no, this doesn't really have anything to do with stubbornness," he said, thoughtful, matter-of-fact. "Mostly you just mentioned fucking in the shower and I really enjoyed that mental image."

His head tilted.

"I say image, but it's more like full sensory fantasy experience. If we're being honest."

"You know, you do have a shower up here."

Just that. Nothing else.

Who needed a full sensory fantasy? Bruce had a full sensory memory that cut off just before it got good.

Clark looked down at Bruce for just a moment before, almost too fast, Clark was walking across the room with Bruce on his shoulder, headed for the en suite bathroom.

"Noticed," he informed Bruce.

Bruce squawked like an offended chicken and flailed around at Clark until he figured out what was happening, and then more or less settled down.

Until they got through the doorway and into the bathroom. At that point he immediately started wriggling to get himself down and onto his feet.

"I could've walked, you know."

He felt obligated to say that. He wasn't really all that upset. If he'd been really upset, he would have smacked Clark's ass or bit him or something (no, that was still play. Really upset would have just been tension and silence).

"Of course you could have walked," Clark answered helpfully, because Bruce wasn't the only one who could be a dick when it suited him. "But maybe I wanted to carry my partner to the bathroom to make it clear that of things I want-"

He leaned in to go for a kiss, drawing back just far enough to say

"-shower sex with him is pretty damn close to the top."

Bruce wrapped his fingers in Clark's hair, held on tightly to make sure that Clark pulling away any further than to kiss would - well, be perfectly easy and probably give Bruce's fingers rope burn, but at least he was making his intentions clear.

He returned that kiss and he returned it with real intensity and want.

"Words work, too."

And that was all he said before he was right back in the kiss, holding on to Clark and kissing him, and Clark could figure out the shower himself. Bruce was busy.

Also wearing pants.

But mostly busy.

"Words. Okay." He managed that between rough kisses as he shuffled them into the shower. He paused then, looking straight at Bruce, and there was a fresh need there. The only time Clark had been this frantic, he'd kissed Bruce against the ceiling.

His hands ran all over, one sliding past the waistband of his exercise pants to pull Bruce closer.

"Want you. Now." A pause then-- "Please?"

The fact that Clark was frantic and needed like this wasn't exactly something Bruce relished, but it was something he understood. It certainly wasn't something he feared.

It was something that turned him on, even while he realized it was a symptom of Clark very much not being okay.

He went with the pull, caught himself against Clark's shoulders leaned in to kiss him - hot and heavy and hard. "Only if you get my pants off first." That should be easy enough for Clark.

Then they could get back to this plan and, for all the remark, there wasn't really any reserve there. He wasn't scared of Clark and Clark had had him for years, anyway.

It was a symptom of Clark being very much not okay, but it was a symptom like a fever was a symptom: the body in question was doing what it needed to get better, burning away the sickness in the heat between them.

The challenge of pants was no challenge at all, a slight lift and the resulting breeze the only indication he'd done anything at all. But there were no pants now, at least not in the shower. The shower just held them... and the basket of toiletries. Thankfully, Clark had snatched them up along with Bruce.

"Pants off."

for knightbynight: For now and hereafter...

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