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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He glanced over at the uniform for a moment before wincing just a little and letting his face bury itself in the closest pillow. Dumb. He'd been so eager to get into a hot shower, to wash off the feel of the mud and the water and all the people who'd been clutching at him as he swept them up...

"I'll bring them all down. That, and the pieces of Kryptonian technology that I kept at home. The Legion ring."

Then--

"'As long as I have Jason with me'?" because that was worth an eyebrow raise.

Bruce worked his fingers into Clark's hair and rubbed the back of his neck when he went facedown in the pillow. It wasn't something he could just let go, but it also wasn't the end of the world. It had been addressed.

And if ever there was a sign Clark's absence had effected him, and he was concerned about Clark's state now, it was the ease of which he let that go and relatively gentle method of handling it to start with.

"Yes. If you're going to work naked down there for an extended period of time, I'd rather it be while I'm out with Jason instead of-" He stopped. Talk about dumb. "No one's sneaking up on you, naked or otherwise. Never mind."

If Clark was a barely-held-together facade in front of most everyone else, it somehow made him all the less defensive around Bruce. His layers, the various protections and stoppage points that had made up his system of trust, had changed considerably over the time he'd been gone. Now, it was one big wall... and there was, at current, a very small population inside that wall.

That was why he was as much of a cat as he'd ever been to that touch.

"I'll keep that nakedness rule in mind in the cave," he said, as if Bruce hadn't said something mildly ridiculous. "Though it's a bit chilly down there for me to really head down there without at least a robe. Maybe my fuzzy slippers. I think I grabbed those."

Bruce kept rubbing Clark's neck, quite literally massaging it with one hand and taking periodic breaks to lightly scratch up into his hair.

"Mm. I'll be disappointed if they don't have little ears and faces." The slippers, he meant.

Clark made the softest sound at the back of his throat and moved in to get more of Bruce's touches, not just encouraging but insistent. All the same--

"No ears, because they're sharks, but there are little fins."

Bruce stopped moving his hand when Clark got pushy and left it resting there. For a moment. "You aren't a shark person." Wrong animal slippers, Clark, how dare you.

Clark tipped his head up to look at Bruce.

"They were a gift. And they're warm."

"You need bunny slippers," he insisted.

But went back to massaging Clark's neck and even worked his way down Clark's back a bit.

Clark's shoulders shook slightly in soft laughter.

"All right. If you insist."

As discussions went, this was definitely edging towards the most ridiculous of them.

"Why a bunny, though?" he couldn't help but ask. "Thought I was a cat."

And he certainly wasn't disabusing Bruce of that theory at the moment. Clark usually didn't have many qualms about enjoying Bruce's affection when he got it, but he'd definitely graduated a level in shamelessness.

Bruce was not being affectionate. Bruce was giving Clark a massage, for entirely selfish reasons.

He rolled up and straddled Clark's hips with his knees, sat up and was able to use both hands, now, and that was likely going to make him much more effective at digging his fingers into muscles, stroking over cloth covered skin and just touching.

"You can be a cat who killed bunnies and are wearing their corpses as slippers. Sharks would just eat the cat."

"Rabbit is stringy," Clark murmured because Bruce was getting in there and for whatever reason that Bruce was doing it, Clark was enjoying it just as selfishly. But he had enough of his brain still online to tilt his head back to look at Bruce.

"...that's just a bit ghoulish, Bruce."

"I dress up like a bat to scare people," Bruce said, dryly. "I'd hope being a bit ghoulish isn't entirely surprising." He was sitting there and, actually, basically sitting on Clark's ass now. It was working for him, and giving him the access he wanted.

Except Clark's head up.

He responded to that by putting his hand on Clark's head and pushing it back toward the pillow. "Head down."

"Yes, dear," Clark said obediently, with a little smirk into the bedding. And, perhaps, a little shift of his hips underneath Bruce.

Bruce swatted Clark's shoulder a bit, but mostly got busy giving Clark a proper massage. Nothing overly suggestive, just a good, heavy, weight and a lot of touch and physical contact. Things that he couldn't have done just cuddling but could do like this, with a concrete objective.

"Don't call me that," he said, way later than necessary.

"Absolutely, honey," Clark answered, his shoulders shaking just once in withheld laughter.

"Clark. I am at your back, you live in my house, I have a rainbow of kryptonite and I am Batman. If you think I can't find a way to make you regret this, you don't know me nearly as well as I think you do."

This entire thing had gone from profoundly painful to profoundly ridiculous but he was serious about the threat. Clearly. Probably not the green stuff, definitely not the red stuff, but silver? Yeah. Okay, maybe not since he'd pay for it as much as Clark but he would find something.

Clark looked back at Bruce and the smile was so very wide. A little smug, of course. Because he'd always be a little smug at Bruce since they'd gotten together. Being with Bruce, he thought, would make anyone just a little smug. It was one of the few manners of smug he allowed himself, as a matter of fact.

That was why his answer was--

"Looking forward to it," was his answer, because sometimes, just sometimes, Bruce wasn't the only one who enjoyed a bit of a challenge.

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Clark in a way that very few would have found funny but he had no concerns about Clark taking as too much of a threat or warning signal - or even stopping that smug, ridiculous grin.

"Well, you're feeling better." He was glad.

"Why wouldn't I feel better?" he said as he laid his head back down and let his eyes close, still smiling. Bruce's glares still held power, just... not when they were like this, and not in situations like this. He could tell actually angry from Batgrump in his sleep.

"You were Superman. That was either going to make you feel better or backfire." Since Clark had asked- and Bruce was currently sitting on his ass, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable time to tackle that issue.

"I was Superman," he agreed, content with the past tense. "And I will be again. Right now, I think... I think I can be Clark for a while. Or Kal. Whichever one feels good."

He breathed in deep and slow, soothed just from the weight on his back. Clark trusted, emphatically, implicitly... so someone at his back, especially this someone, was just another person beside him.

"Not long. Just... long enough."

He needed to be Superman. But he knew how important being Superman was. And how much more there was to Superman than being able to punch really hard. Damaging the image of Superman could do real harm. So... he would wait. And he would trust Bruce to help him figure out how long 'long enough' was. Because even when he wasn't sure of Superman, Bruce was.

Bruce was sure.

"You were Superman half an hour ago." That needed clarified - okay, no it didn't, but it did explain the checkin, better than a seemingly nonsensical statement of the obvious. "You need the break. I hope you get it. We'll all do what we can to make sure you get it and that Superman is there to go back to."

But if another situation came up, and it was down to Superman or living with the consequences of his action - Well, he'd put his own money on Superman pulling through, just like he had this time.

As for how long? It was going to be a natural transition, Bruce thought, and hopefully not a clear one. Something that came back because of need and growing confidence in Clark.

"I can be Superman for a couple of hours now," he agreed, letting his head tip to the side on the pillow. "And that will grow."

The smile was audible.

"Batman's looking out for me, after all. And the man has never met a challenge he didn't kick squarely in the ass."

"...How long is the sappiness going to last?" Not that his own had actually gone away, but. He was weirdly more comfortable with his own than Clark's. Maybe it was that Clark's was a lighter emotion.

That got him lifting his head a little to turn back at Bruce, one eyebrow firmly raised. Then he snorted, rolled his eyes, and let his head go back down.

"Oh cram it, Bruce."

Which he figured was decidedly unsappy.

for knightbynight: For now and hereafter...

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