Archive of Our Own

One

Hearing Bruce Waynes laugh from the other side of a room is perhaps one of the greatest tragedies known to mankind. 

It’s not even a real laugh, Clark knows. It’s the Brucie version. All warmth on the surface, with nothing but polite boredom underneath. But it works. Heads turn toward him like flowers to sunlight. People lean in closer, charmed. The whole glittering room seems to angle itself in his direction, and Clark can do nothing but watch from his assigned post near the bar.

It’s not the distance that bothers him. He’s spent years shadowing Bruce in every kind of crowd. Everything from black-tie galas, to charity auctions, to board meetings where the air smells like old money and worse politics. He’s trained to hold position, to keep the perimeter clean, to let Bruce glide through his public life untouched.

No, the tragedy is that someone else is making him laugh. Or at least trying.

These people don’t know anything about him. They think Bruce is easy—flash a knowing grin, make a few lazy jabs about the stock market, and he’ll fall over himself in amusement. They don’t hear the hollow in that sound.

Clark does. He knows Bruce’s real laugh is softer than this, tucked away like something private. It turns his face warm and pink, pulls at his mouth in an unguarded way that has nothing to do with performance. Bruce likes puns and wordplay, especially the kind Clark delivers when he’s being just rude enough about the leeches who orbit Wayne money. He likes his coffee either jet-black bitter or absurdly sweet—Clark can tell which by the way he rolls out of bed in the morning. He likes superhero cartoons, and he likes dinosaurs. And sometimes, when the world is far enough away, when it’s just them in the cocoon of quiet and isolation, Bruce talks about his dreams.

A family. Someone he loves, a kid in the backseat, and a long stretch of road unraveling in front of them.

Across the room, a man in a tailored suit leans in, brushing a little too close to Bruce’s shoulder. Clark notes the angle of his stance, the way his hand hovers in the air like he’s just waiting for an excuse to touch. Bruce doesn’t flinch away. He tips his head, mouth curved in that practiced, lazy smile that convinces half the city he’s harmless.

It’s good cover. It’s also infuriating. 

Clark sips his water, eyes never leaving them. He’s already catalogued the man’s face, his name, the badge clipped inside his jacket. It’ll take less than an hour to make sure this particular stranger never gets within five feet of Bruce Wayne again. Less if Clark decides not to be polite about it.

They’ve both got covers. Stupid, sex-addict Brucie Wayne. Eternally kind, easygoing Clark Kent.

Not that Clark isn’t fundamentally good—he knows he is. Ma and Pa telling him he’s a good man isn’t just a comfort, it’s a responsibility. As childish as it sounds, he feels like he has to keep earning that truth every day.

But Bruce. Bruce needs to be underestimated. The more people think he’s distracted, the easier it is for him to work in the shadows of his own company, to make moves without anyone noticing the pieces shifting on the board. Clark’s own mask works in a similar direction: he needs people to invite him in, to trust the smile and the easy questions, to forget he’s even there—until it matters.

Bruce is… complicated. Most of his public stupidity is played up, sure, but there’s a streak of genuine naivety under it, a kind of spoiled-rich-boy charm that never quite goes away. He’s sharp about the most unexpected things — ask him about industrial filtration systems or 14th-century art thefts and you’ll get a lecture worthy of a tenured professor. But then, without missing a beat, he’ll turn around and say something so… questionable Clark isn’t sure if it’s a joke or not.

Not dumb. Never dumb. Clark wouldn’t insult him that way. Just… Bruce. A man who can dissect complicated ledgers in the morning and still be genuinely mystified about why his espresso machine won’t work by evening.

Clark’s not sure which version he’s seeing at the moment — the carefully constructed Brucie mask or the genuine article — because Bruce’s instincts when it comes to spotting danger are less than stellar, and the man speaking to him is getting a little too close for Clark’s liking. People assume Clark’s job is to keep Bruce away from temptation. To stop him from screwing his way from Gotham to Star City and beyond, or from throwing ragers with daddy’s money in some glass-walled penthouse.

The thing is, Bruce isn’t the whore the media makes him out to be. He just doesn’t mind the reputation the way Clark does. Doesn’t see the harm in letting people believe it, so long as it keeps them from looking too closely at what actually matters.

Point being — Clark keeps people away from Bruce for Bruce’s sake. Not to shield him from whatever headline will run in the morning, but because he doesn’t like seeing anyone take more from Bruce than Bruce’s willing to give.

So when that already-fake smile takes on an uncomfortable edge, Clark moves.

He slips through the crowd in quick, practiced strides, already making a mental note to press Bruce gently  about letting him roam more freely at events. If Clark had needed to get here from the far end of the ballroom, he wouldn’t have made it in time. Bruce doesn’t like being shadowed. Clark thinks it’s worth the argument.

He arrives just as Bruce laughs — too sharp, too practiced — and takes a long drink from his glass. Clark catches the tail end of the exchange.

“…have to talk to my publicist about that,” Bruce says lightly, like he’s already halfway checked out of the conversation.

Clark leans in, close enough that his voice won’t carry. Bruce jumps at the sound — like he hadn’t noticed Clark approach. Maybe he hadn’t. Clark can never tell.

“It’s time to go, sir,” he murmurs. 

Bruce’s smile shifts—less rehearsed, softer. He sets his drink down and reaches for Clark’s face, palms warm as he draws him closer, closing the distance until Clark can feel the faint heat of his breath. They aren’t far apart in height, but Bruce always insists on pulling him down anyway.

“Aw, look,” Bruce says, voice lilting. “I was just telling him about you, Clark.”

Clark’s eyes flick to the abandoned glass. He’s been counting—two drinks, both taken in slow sips. Bruce isn’t a lightweight; it usually takes triple that to warm his cheeks. The slur in his voice doesn’t match the math, and the sudden looseness in his posture twists suspicion into Clark’s chest.

The man beside him offers a thin smile. “Of course. The security.”

He rakes his gaze over Clark in a quick, dismissive scan before turning back to Bruce. It’s a look Clark knows too well. People like this will write him off without a second thought, just because his job puts him a step behind Bruce instead of beside him. In their minds, he’s replaceable—another forgettable hire orbiting a spoiled little prince who’ll grow bored and swap him out for the next face in a pressed suit.

But they’re wrong. Bruce could give away every cent, burn down every boardroom, and Clark would still be there. Whether Bruce wanted him or not.

Clark belonged to Bruce, sure. But whatever this was went both ways.

Warm fingers catch on the lapel of his jacket, tugging lightly, and then Bruce is leaning into him—weight pressing into Clark’s side in a way that’s all wrong. That’s how Clark knows, without a shadow of doubt, that something’s off. Because Bruce, even in his most convincing Brucie Wayne performances, guards the boundaries of his own body like a fortress. He’s careful about where his hands go. He’s careful about who’s allowed to put theirs on him.

Clark had never met anyone who could ache so plainly for touch and yet recoil from it at the same time. It was like watching someone hover over the surface of water, dying of thirst, too afraid to take the plunge.

Except when something stripped the hesitation away, when it was the heady tangle of pleasure only Clark could pull from him, or when his senses blurred from intoxication, then Bruce touched like he needed it to keep breathing.

Clark catches Bruce’s wrists, steady but not rough. Bruce will hate this later, hate that he clung to Clark in public, not for his own pride, but because of how it might reflect on Clark.

“Sir, the car should be waiting to take you home,” he says, voice pitched soft enough to pass for deference.

Bruce leans in instead, weight pressing closer.

“Sir.”

“Listen,” the other man cuts in, irritation curling his mouth. “Brucie and I were still talking. Go on—your boss will let you know when he’s good and ready to leave, hm? Isn’t that right, Brucie?”

The pet name lands wrong in Clark’s ears—too familiar, too presumptuous. Bruce’s lashes lower, the faintest delay in his reaction, and that’s all the confirmation Clark needs that this man isn’t just some harmless hanger-on.

What to do. Deal with the man that’s clearly attempted to drug Bruce Wayne for whatever reason (Clark knows why—everyone knows why), or ignore him for now and get Bruce home before anyone realizes something is wrong. Before Bruce can get hurt even further.

Easy decision. Still, he needs Bruce to think leaving is his own choice.

“The car is waiting, sir,” Clark says again, his tone just a shade cooler.

Bruce laughs, leaning heavier against him. “No, no. C’mon… This is fun. No? What do you think, Clark? Hm?”

Like he’s trying to convince himself. Clark swallows the sigh that wants to slip out.

“Bruce, Alfred wants you home,” he says, pitched low enough for Bruce alone. He uses Bruce instead of sir, knowing the title grates as much as Master Wayne. It’s leverage, just enough to cut through the fog.

It works—partially. Bruce’s head tilts, like he’s trying to match Clark’s voice to the rest of the room. “Oh. Uhm—yeah. Okay.” His brow furrows, then smooths again, voice dipping. “Clark, wasn’t it only… two? Two drinks.”

Clark’s expression stays neutral, only a shadow of a nod, but inside he’s ticking off every sign—the flush in Bruce’s cheeks, the faint sheen on his skin, the blink that lags half a beat.

He wants to hide him away. Keep him where no one can see him, touch him, hurt him. The thought aches in his chest.

“Come on,” Clark says, voice almost gentle. The man at the counter leans in again, and Clark turns just enough to meet his eyes. His polite smile doesn’t touch the rest of his face. “Mister Wayne has other matters to attend to. Thank you.” The words are smooth, but the undercurrent is stone. The man at the counter makes a move to stall them, to make an excuse to have them stay, but Clark is having none of it. What had he expected, even knowing Bruce always carried security?

He slides a hand to the small of Bruce’s back—support masked as the casual touch of an attentive plus-one—and angles them toward the exit. He moves them like current through water: slow enough not to draw attention, sure enough to leave no gaps in their path.

A murmured “’Scuse us” here, a nod there, every step measured. The warm press of Bruce’s shoulder against his side is both grounding and alarming; Bruce is leaning, even if he doesn’t realize it yet.

Naturally, Bruce complicates things. Every few steps, he stops to clasp a shoulder, murmur something low, offer a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Clark lets it happen just enough to keep their pace believable, but each time Bruce’s weight tilts toward someone else, Clark’s hand firms at his back, steering him on.

They pass a server, and without breaking stride, Clark plucks a tall glass of water from the tray. The condensation is a cold bite against his fingers as he presses it into Bruce’s hand. “Sip,” he says quietly.

Bruce glances up at him through half-lidded eyes, the corner of his mouth curling. “Bossy,” he murmurs, but he drinks. Water traces a thin path down the glass, and Clark has to fight the urge to check whether Bruce’s grip is steady.

It’s shameful to admit, probably, but part of him doesn’t hate this. The knowledge that someone’s incapacitated Bruce against his will makes Clark’s throat tighten with fury—but still… he likes taking care of him. It’s his job, sure, and Bruce pays him far too much for it—generous to a fault. But in moments like this, Clark can almost believe he’s all Bruce has. All he needs. All he’ll ever need again.

They’re not dating. Not really. They screw around, Clark gives him his soul whenever boredom strikes Bruce, and they talk. When Bruce tells him things Clark’s sure he wouldn’t share with anyone else—when he lets Clark touch him, kiss him—Clark can pretend they’re dating. He does, often, as pathetic as that sounds.

Bruce never does it to be cruel. Clark doesn’t think he has that kind of malice in him, even when his words are cutting down competitors or dismantling people who dare think they’re better. No—Bruce is eternally himself. Remembering Clark’s coffee order to the decimal, sending him articles about things he mentioned once in passing, keeping a blanket in the car because he knows Clark runs cold. Paying him far too much. Asking if he’s eaten yet, if he’s sleeping enough. Saying we like it’s the most natural word in the world.

It’s not what it looks like. Clark knows that. Bruce is Gotham’s sweetheart, always smiling for someone else, always belonging to the city first. No matter how much Clark gives himself to this imperfect, beautiful man, he’s just the man beside him, never the man Bruce is with.

Bruce finishes the last sip and passes the empty glass into Clark’s hand without breaking stride—or whatever counts as stride in his current, slow, meandering drift toward the exit. He’s talking about something. Clark isn’t sure what. He realizes he hasn’t been listening for at least a minute, so he slips in a few low hums of acknowledgement, guilt needling faintly at him.

By the time they break through the last knot of people and step into the cool night air, Bruce’s rambling has unraveled into something winding and half-anchored—threads of observation, scraps of story, all trailing into nothing. Clark catches maybe every third word. His focus is elsewhere, planning what to do when they're back home. 

The car is already waiting at the curb, black and polished to a mirror. Clark’s hand is firm at Bruce’s elbow as he guides him down the steps. The chauffeur moves to open the door, but Clark is the one to press Bruce’s shoulder, a subtle push to fold him into the leather seat.

At the last second, instead of shutting the door behind him, Clark slides in as well, the scent of Bruce’s cologne—clean cedar and something darker—closing around him in the confined space. He leans forward just enough to catch the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Home,” he says evenly. The man nods and pulls into the slow stream of traffic.

Bruce’s head tips back against the seat, his gaze going unfocused for a moment before snapping back to Clark. “...but that’s just theropods,” he finishes, as if there had been no interruption between the party and here.

Clark buckles his seatbelt, giving him a sidelong glance. “Theropods?”

Bruce frowns faintly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Weren’t you listening?”

Clark lets a small, easy smile pull at his mouth, because the real answer—that he’d been cataloging the exact shade of Bruce’s skin tone, tracking his breathing, and replaying the moment he might’ve been drugged—isn’t something he’s about to say aloud. “I’m sorry, sir. I was distracted. What about theropods?”

Bruce shifts in his seat, one hand making a vague, professorial gesture to some invisible audience. “I was saying—the majority of them had hollow bones. Same structure that lets birds fly. They weren’t all massive, bloodthirsty giants—some were the size of house cats, feathered, probably iridescent in sunlight.” His eyes half-close, but the words are clear, practiced. “And they didn’t roar. That’s a Hollywood invention. More likely low-frequency calls, reptilian and avian, carried for miles.”

Clark blinks. Dinosaurs. Of course. One of his things. Bruce is so smart, just… socially, a little off. “You… read that somewhere?”

Bruce smiles faintly, almost sly. “No. I saw a fossil imprint when I was in Mongolia. Friend of mine—well, not really a friend—runs digs out there.”

Clark turns toward him fully, watching the way passing streetlights stripe and un-stripe his face. The shadows catch in the fine creases at the corners of his eyes, the set of his mouth. His gaze is steady in a way his body isn’t—knees splayed, shoulder sinking into the seat like the weight of his own head is too much to hold. Clark files it away with the rest. 

Bruce snorts suddenly, breaking the stillness. “Sorry. I lied.”

Clark narrows his eyes. “Bruce?”

“Bullshit—about Mongolia.” His voice jumps a note, laughter sharp around the edges. “I read about it as a kid. Used to check out the same book over and over just to look at the diagrams.”

He giggles before letting his head drop to the window with a soft thud, breath misting the glass. “Guess you can’t trust me with stories. I make them sound too real.”

Clark doesn’t smile this time. “Bruce,” he says quietly, careful not to spook him, “I need you to focus, okay? Can you tell me exactly how you feel right now? Please?”

Bruce turns his head slowly, as if the question requires physical effort to process. His eyes search Clark’s face—too long, too intent for someone who should be tipsy at most. “How I feel?” he repeats, tasting the words like they’re foreign.

“Yes,” Clark says. He watches the dilation of Bruce’s pupils, the faint tremor in his left hand as it rests against his thigh. “Dizzy? Lightheaded? Nauseous?”

Bruce’s brow furrows, and for a moment Clark wonders if he’s lost him to another tangent. Then Bruce exhales through his nose, slow and measured in a way that feels deliberate, practiced. “Warm,” he says finally. “Like my skin’s been turned inside out. And… floaty. My thoughts keep…” His fingers lift vaguely, sketching a loose spiral in the air before falling back to his lap. “Slipping.”

Clark nods once, masking the spike of concern that twists through him. Two drinks don’t do this. Not to Bruce.

“I think someone might have slipped you something,” Clark says. “That man from the counter—”

“Benson?” Bruce laughs, then stops, frowning faintly. “No… really? Someone’s drugged me?”

“Yeah,” Clark breathes. “I’m sorry.”

Bruce exhales like the news is only mildly inconvenient. “Oh. That really blows.” He folds in on himself a little, shoulders hunching, gaze sliding toward the window. “Home?”

“Yeah,” Clark says gently. “Alfred will get you fixed up. I’ll get you home, out of those clothes, and you can be patched up and sleep. Alright?”

Bruce nods once, small and slow, like even that movement takes effort.

Would it be so bad? Would Alfred even mind? If Clark just… took Bruce somewhere, somewhere no one could find him. He’d have everything he wanted—every whim anticipated, every preference met before he could voice it. Clark could make him happy. He knows he could. All Bruce would have to do in return was never speak to anyone else again.

The thought sits heavy, dangerous, and far too easy.

Clark presses his fingers to his eyes and exhales, slow and tight.

Something was wrong with him.

If a month later Bruce notices the man from the party has been fired, he doesn’t mention it. Clark isn’t the kind to put his hands on someone in anger—but ending a career, dismantling a reputation? That, he could do without raising his voice. He wasn't above using Bruce's name to get his way.

That evening, Alfred makes Clark's favorite meal. No one brings it up again.

Two

They don't live together. 

Well, sort of. Clark keeps an apartment in Metropolis, the lease a relic from a life that feels distant. He visits now and then, enough to keep up the pretense. Dinners with old friends, coffee with his parents, the occasional beer with coworkers who still call him “Kent” like nothing has changed. But ever since he took the job with Bruce, those trips have grown rare.

It’s not that he minds going home. It’s that this, being near Bruce, feels more like home than any set of keys in his pocket. The more time he spends away, the more agitated he gets. The idea of something happening while he’s not there gnaws at him, an itch under the skin. If Bruce needs him, Clark wants to be within arm’s reach, not stuck two hundred miles away with a phone in his hand. It’s easier to protect him if Clark’s there every second of every day. Bruce hasn’t complained, and Clark tells himself that means he doesn’t mind.

The arrangement has lasted for years now, though it began under circumstances neither of them would have chosen. Maybe that’s why it feels almost miraculous that they get along at all—Southern boy Clark, City boy Bruce. Clark still bristles sometimes at the casual way Bruce throws money around, the way his watch could buy a small house and he doesn’t even glance at the price tag. But then Bruce quietly covers the bills to keep the Kent farm running, even offers to buy his parents a bigger place—not as a favor, not as payment, but simply because Clark loves them.

It’s hard to stay mad at a man like that. Harder still to imagine leaving.

He calls Lois and Jimmy every week, because he still loves them—almost as much as he loves his parents. As much as Bruce, though he never says it out loud. They’d worry if he vanished from their lives completely, and he can’t bring himself to make them carry that kind of weight.

But his real life is here. He has a room at the manor, and he uses it more than his own apartment. He eats here, sleeps here. Wakes to find Bruce in the kitchen every morning, sipping coffee that’s still steaming, Alfred setting down breakfast for two without needing to ask.

And sometimes—most of the time—he wakes in bed next to Bruce. The air warm between them, a quiet that feels like it belongs to people who share more than a roof.

Almost like they’re in love.

It’s Saturday. Bruce is supposed to be doing something—Clark can’t remember what, exactly. Meetings, maybe. A charity luncheon. Something with a suit and a schedule.

Instead, he’s by the pool, dark blue swim trunks, feet trailing in the water. Every now and then he kicks just enough to watch the ripples move away from him, as if testing the surface for some secret only he knows. The sun has painted him in gold this summer, skin warm and tan in a way Clark suspects comes from spending more time here than anyone realizes.

And he’s quiet. Not the tense, coiled silence Bruce gets when he’s irritated, or the sharp-edged tone of calculation. This is different—drifting, almost. He slips into these moods sometimes, retreating somewhere Clark can’t follow, no matter how close he sits.

Clark watches him from the shade, arms folded loosely over his chest, and tries to guess. Childhood memories? Old wounds? Or something simple, like the sound of the water and the weight of the heat settling in his bones? He’ll never know unless Bruce says, and Bruce won’t. That’s just how it is.

Still, Clark finds himself hoping, selfishly, that Bruce is thinking about him.

Bruce sighs, the sound soft enough to almost be lost under the gentle lap of water. He leans back until he’s stretched full against the pale tile, dark hair fanning out in a careless halo.

“Clark.”

“Yes, sir?” Clark’s voice comes automatically, a habit as much as a title.

Bruce shuts his eyes, draping an arm over his face to shield himself from the sunlight. “Let’s go out somewhere. It’s been ages since we’ve gone anywhere, and I’m bored.”

There’s no inflection to the word bored, but Clark knows it means restless. Knows it means Bruce wants distraction, maybe even trouble. And like always, Clark will be the one to give it to him—whether that’s smart or not.

Clark wonders where he means. Too early for the lounge. No auctions or parties this weekend. Most of Bruce’s usual distractions are off the table.

“Where, sir?”

Bruce sits up, turning toward him with a lazy twist of his torso, legs swinging out of the pool and splashing water onto the deck. Droplets slide over tanned skin, catching the sunlight in a way that makes them look deliberate, like some cruel photographer staged it that way just to see if Clark would stare. “Out. Anywhere. Somewhere with… I don’t know. Interesting. You’ll figure it out.”

When Clark dies, he wants to have a word with whoever decided Bruce Wayne should exist in this exact form. The dark hair curling damp at the nape of his neck, the sharp jaw softened by the kind of tan that only comes from indulgence, the easy grace of someone born into money but wearing it like a second skin. Even the slight smudge of water on his temple looks perfect. It’s unfair. No man should be allowed to look like this without at least trying.

It's so simple to feel inadequate, next to perfection. 

Clark is being too forward, he knows. Still, he smiles faintly. “I imagine most places are interesting to you.”

“Not true.” Bruce stands, stretching like a cat in the sun. “Boardrooms. Courtrooms. Most rooms that involve suits without plenty of alcohol and those little crackers—oh, I love those.” His tone turns lightly dreamy.  “I’m a little peckish now, fabulous. I’ll go get dressed.”

He snags the towel draped over the lounge chair, dragging it carelessly over his hair and shoulders. Then—like it’s the most natural thing in the world—he steps close, warm from the sun, smelling faintly of chlorine and expensive sunscreen, and presses a quick kiss to Clark’s cheek. Pink in the face the way he always is when it’s genuine.

“Think of somewhere. Surprise me.”

Clark feels faint as he watches Bruce stroll inside, casual as anything, like he hasn’t just lit a match and left it smoldering in Clark’s chest. How cruel, Clark thinks. Bruce is always like this—touchy, indulgent, offering just enough affection to undo him.

And it’s never quite enough. Not for Clark. He’s greedy.

You’ve already got him in your bed. Why do you still want more?

Bruce takes about forty minutes to shower and dress—faster than usual, but still enough time for Clark to settle on an idea. Perhaps it’s presumptuous, but he likes to think he knows Bruce well enough by now to choose something he’ll actually enjoy. Still, better to be certain.

“...you’re sure?”

Alfred shuts the spice cabinet with a soft click. “Yes, Master Kent. Although I can’t recall the last time he visited such a place. It isn’t often he allows himself indulgence in that sort of thing. Lord knows I’d prefer it over his usual parties. If you’d like, I can call ahead.”

Clark nods, ignoring the Master title—he wants Alfred firmly on his side for this. “That would be great. I think maybe he stays away because of the press… you know how it is for him.”

“I do,” Alfred says, already reaching for the phone. “I’ll see to it you won’t be disturbed. And I’ll make you both something to take with you. Master Bruce should be just about done.”

Clark’s halfway to thanking him when he feels it—an arm slipping neatly around his waist, followed by the other, settling there like they’ve belonged all along. Warm, steady, and wholly unhurried. Clark freezes before he can stop himself, pulse leaping in a way that’s frankly ridiculous for a man who’s been on the receiving end of Bruce Wayne’s attention for months now.

The scent of him is clean from the shower, tinged faintly with whatever cologne Alfred must have left out for him this morning. His damp hair brushes the side of Clark’s neck when he leans in, voice mild, curious:

“What are we talking about?”

Clark glances down and sees the shirt—that shirt. The one that fits Bruce like it was made with him in mind, sleeves pushed just enough to show forearms Clark tries not to stare at for too long in public. It’s a shirt Bruce has probably forgotten Clark likes, which somehow makes it worse.

He can feel the curve of Bruce’s smile against his shoulder when he doesn’t answer right away.

“Nothing that concerns you, Master Bruce,” Alfred replies without missing a beat, his back still to them as he dials.

Bruce hums, unconvinced, but doesn’t move away. He never moves away first. It’s the kind of touch Clark suspects Bruce thinks of as harmless—just a casual intimacy between people who share mornings and beds and too many inside jokes. But it’s not harmless, not to Clark. Not when it’s paired with that easy, thoughtless warmth, as if Bruce has no idea how greedy Clark is for it.

Clark gently pries at Bruce’s hands, his fingers lingering longer than they should before pulling them away. He always pulls away first—has to—for the sake of them both. “We should go, sir.”

Bruce grins, unbothered, like Clark’s retreat was just another part of the game. “Oh, good. You’ve decided then. Where are we going?”

“I’d like to keep it a secret, if you don’t mind.”

Clark takes the opportunity to guide him toward the door, a hand at Bruce’s back.

“A secret? You?” Bruce’s laugh is low and warm, curling under Clark’s ribs. “Clark, you hardly keep secrets. You’re very easy to read, you know. And I bet I can guess where we’re—oh, bye Alfie!—going, if I really try. But I’m being generous and letting you whisk me away.”

Clark wonders, not for the first time, if Bruce has any idea how his voice sounds when he’s in a good mood—rich, playful, laced with something softer. He doubts it.

Should he have changed out of his uniform? Maybe it's a bit much for where they're going. But it’s too late now. Bruce is still talking as they step outside, his words tumbling easily, a steady background hum to Clark’s thoughts.

By the time they reach the car, Clark’s not sure if Bruce’s chatter is for his own amusement or just a way to keep Clark looking at him. Either way, it’s working.

Time passes easily this way. Conversation has never been difficult when it’s just the two of them—Bruce filling the air with stories, as if Clark’s presence loosens something in him.

It’s almost enough for Clark to forget this is his job.

“Really?” Clark hums, steering them through traffic. Thirty minutes later, they’re pulling into the parking lot, and somehow Bruce still hasn’t figured out where they’re going.

Bruce nods firmly, as if they’d just started the conversation instead of circling the same topic for half an hour. “Absolutely. It’s easy once you know what to look for, and Oliver’s got a terrible poker face. Always has. You’d think a man who owns that many expensive watches would be a little more savvy, but no—he glances down at his wrist every time he bluffs. Which would be fine if he weren’t so theatrical about it. I mean, it’s like watching someone in a silent movie—hand to forehead, little sigh, darting eyes—”

Clark parks the car, amused despite himself. “I didn’t realize you paid that much attention.”

“Of course I do. I like winning,” Bruce says, already leaning forward to look out the windshield, his words spilling over into the next thought without pause. “Oh, we’re here. Hm. Interesting building. You know, they should do something about that paint color—”

Clark can tell the instant Bruce figures it out. His words falter mid-thought, that quicksilver focus shifting from the end of his poker story to the world beyond the windshield. His gaze sharpens, a little spark lighting in those blue eyes, and his mouth parts like he’s just stumbled onto the best surprise of his life.

“Clark,” he breathes, reverent and delighted all at once. “That’s—oh my god. Aren’t you the absolute sweetest thing to grace the earth? Really…”

Clark can’t help the small smile tugging at his mouth. “You don’t even know if you’re right yet.”

“Oh, shut up,” Bruce says fondly, already fumbling with his seatbelt. “The sign gives it away. Come on, come on. Hurry up, we’re already here late. We have maybe three hours to see everything—ah, look at that! They added a statue in the front, how darling.”

He’s halfway out of the car before Clark’s even turned off the engine, that boyish enthusiasm bright and unguarded in a way Clark almost never sees. This expression Bruce only wears in slivers of time—at odd hours in the kitchen, or when he’s so focused on some obscure interest he forgets to keep his walls up. Clark has learned to recognize it, to treasure it, because it means Bruce isn’t performing for anyone, not even himself.

“Come here. Take a photo with me.” Bruce tugs insistently at his arm, his palm still faintly warm from resting on the dash. “Wait—a little to the right. There. Come on, smile. Always so serious, Kent.”

Well, when in Rome. Clark leans down, letting his hand settle around Bruce’s waist like it belongs there. Bruce, in turn, reaches up and lightly grasps Clark’s face, pressing their cheeks together for the frame.

Clark watches him—his hair still damp from the shower, the faintest warmth lingering on his skin, the line of his mouth curved into something so genuine it makes Clark’s chest ache. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this close to saying it out loud. Not here, not now. Bruce grins for the camera, and Clark’s own smile blooms brighter than he’d usually allow himself while on the job.

Above them, caught neatly in the shot, the sign reads: Gotham Museum of Natural History.

“Aw, look at you. How sweet.” Bruce’s gaze softens as he studies the photo. “New lockscreen.” The phone disappears back into his pocket, and then Bruce is already tugging Clark toward the entrance, his words spilling out in that rare, unguarded ramble. “Do you think they have those hats, with the ears? I’d get one, but they’re usually kids’ sizes, and our heads are far too large. Maybe they’ll have an adult version, or I could bribe someone at the gift shop. I’ve always wanted one.”

They reach the entrance, the polished stone steps gleaming under the afternoon light. The air changes the moment they step inside—cooler, carrying the faint tang of old paper and something mineral, like rain on stone. The echo of footsteps and low conversation fills the vaulted lobby.

“Alfred mentioned you’ve come before,” Clark says, holding the door as Bruce steps through.

“Sure. A long time ago, probably a field trip.” Bruce’s gaze flickers over the wide staircase, the columns, the banners advertising special exhibits. “I don’t remember it, though.” His tone shifts slightly, something quieter threading through. “I don’t remember large parts of my childhood, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s get a map.”

Clark takes the lead to the front desk, but Bruce beats him to speaking. “Two, please.” He exchanges a polite smile with the woman behind the counter as she slides the glossy fold-outs across to them. Clark watches the practiced civility in Bruce’s expression—measured enough to be polite, warm enough to be forgettable. If the woman recognizes him, she doesn't mention it. 

The woman stamps their tickets, slides them forward. “The dinosaur hall is to the left, gemstones upstairs, and we have a rotating gallery on loan from Metropolis right now.”

Bruce takes the maps, passing one to Clark without looking at it. “Perfect. Thank you.”

It’s not until they’ve stepped away from the counter that Clark realizes Bruce hasn’t let go of his hand. He’s holding it loosely in one hand, but his eyes are scanning the lobby like he’s cataloguing every possible exit and security point. Clark knows better than to point it out—this is just how Bruce moves through the world—but he makes a quiet note to steer them somewhere less crowded first.

“Where to?” Clark asks, falling into step beside him.

“I’m not sure.” Bruce tilts his head, scanning the open atrium like the answer might be printed in the air. “Best for last, or first, so that I’m not thinking about it the entire time?”

“Which part would that be?”

“Are you kidding?” Bruce stops, unfolding the map in a quick, practiced flick. The glossy paper catches the light as he spreads it open between them. “Here—fossils.” His finger taps the section in bold print, the small dinosaur icon stamped beside it.

Clark has to bite back a smile. Well, as long as it isn’t too crowded. “Let’s start there, then.”

They head toward the first corridor, the polished floor reflecting rows of glass display cases. Every so often, a larger group funnels past them—tourists with cameras slung around their necks, kids darting between parents. Each time, Clark sees Bruce’s hand lift to his thigh, tapping out a steady, unending rhythm, a tell he’s long since learned to read.

Bruce does parties differently—masking from the moment he walks in, wearing charm like a custom suit until it’s safe to shed. This is trickier. There’s no mask here, just him, and the low-level hum of other people’s conversations pressing in from every direction.

Clark shifts a half-step closer, steering them toward a quieter stretch of the hall without making it obvious. “I don’t really know much about these things,” he says lightly, breaking the tension without calling attention to it. “I used to go to the museums in Metropolis a lot when I first moved there, but this place is far larger.”

Bruce exhales through his nose, a flicker of relief crossing his face as the crowd thins around them. “Mm. That’s because Gotham overcompensates,” he says, eyes already flicking toward the fossil wing like a compass finding north. “Everything has to be bigger, older, rarer.” 

They pass the sign declaring this the fossil wing, And then there it is. A towering sauropod skeleton, spine curving overhead like a cathedral ceiling, ribs casting long shadows on the floor. Glass cases line the walls with smaller fossils—ammonites spiraled like galaxies, ferns preserved in stone.

Bruce stops dead in his tracks. Clark catches the exact moment the tension in his shoulders eases, replaced by something softer, sweet. His eyes go wide, and for a second, he just… breathes it in.

“God,” Bruce says quietly, like he’s half afraid to break the moment. “I forgot how beautiful this one is.”

Clark tilts his head. “You’ve seen it before?”

“Once,” Bruce murmurs. “When I was—” He cuts himself off, shrugging as if to shake it away. “Doesn’t matter. Look at the preservation on the vertebrae.” He steps forward, tracing the air just shy of the display glass, gaze flicking from joint to joint as though cataloguing each detail. 

“You know,” he continues, voice soft but gaining momentum, “remains of sauropods have been found on every continent. Isn’t that fascinating?” There’s the faintest lilt of genuine excitement there. “And yet, it's so difficult to find a whole specimen. Imagine, these creatures were once everywhere.”

Clark leans in to read the sign next to it. “Even Gotham?”

Bruce’s mouth quirks, just barely. “Gotham would have been underwater at the time.” He glances over, as if to confirm Clark is following, then turns back to the skeleton, posture easing in a way Clark wishes he could make happen more often.

Clark doesn’t answer right away. He just watches him—the way Bruce’s focus sharpens when he’s caught up in something, the way his fingers twitch like he wants to touch, to connect. It’s almost unfair, Clark thinks, how easy it is to fall for him like this.

They move along the room at an easy pace, Bruce’s gaze still drawn back to the towering vertebrae every few steps.

“What’s that one?” Clark gestures toward another display—a skeletal frame lower to the ground, tail arched like a frozen whip.

Bruce angles toward it without hesitation, reading the small plaque aloud. “Stegosaurus stenops. Late Jurassic. Primarily North America.” He crouches slightly, scanning the plates along its spine with a sharp, appraising eye. “The dermal plates might’ve been for thermoregulation. Or display. Depends on who you ask.”

Clark hums, leaning a little closer to the glass. “Looks like armor.”

“Everything’s armor if you’re creative enough.” Bruce straightens, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve as if the Stegosaurus had personally offended his sense of order. “You can tell the musculature from the hip sockets—built for power, not speed. Which probably made them easy prey for…”

His voice trails off. Clark follows his gaze to the far corner, where a massive silhouette waits just beyond the spill of the overhead lights. The long skull, rows of serrated teeth, and the sheer length of the thing make the Stegosaurus suddenly seem like a child’s toy in comparison.

“That,” Bruce breathes, stepping closer without seeming to realize it. “Wow…”

Bruce drifts toward the display like it’s pulling him in, weaving past a family with a stroller without even glancing at them.He stops with his hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed. 

“Tyrannosaurus rex,” Bruce reads from the plaque, the name dry on his tongue but reverent all the same. “Thirteen meters long. Lived in what’s now western North America during the late Cretaceous.”

Clark stands a pace behind, watching the way Bruce tilts his head to take in the whole of it. He imagines that boy Bruce mentioned—the one who maybe came here once, or maybe didn’t—staring up at this same skeleton with the same expression. How old had he been? Seven, maybe. Field trip, or maybe his parents brought him. Everything must have looked so large, so impossible. 

Bruce steps closer, voice dropping. “Look at the bite force on those maxillae. You can see the wear from bone-crushing.” His breath fogs the glass, and he doesn’t notice. “Perfect predator. And all it took was one rock falling from the sky to wipe it out.”

He pauses, gaze lingering on the serrated teeth. “Makes you think. Gosh, I make it sound so simple. It wasn’t, you know—it took a while. Imagine how terrifying that would have been… not being able to see the sky for months, maybe longer. Breathing in the ash. Watching everything you’ve ever known vanish...”

Clark doesn’t interrupt, though his chest tightens. Bruce’s voice has softened into something that feels less like a lecture and more like a memory—though it’s impossible for it to be one. Still, the cadence is the same as when he talks about things he’s lived through, measured and almost too vivid.

Bruce exhales slowly, the fog on the glass blooming and fading in time with his breath. Then, almost as if catching himself, he straightens his coat and takes a deliberate step back. “Anyway. Sauropods probably had it worse.”

He isn’t sure what he was expecting, but Clark is enjoying himself. There’s something strangely grounding about letting Bruce take the lead—watching him light up over vertebrae and teeth. They linger in the fossil wing far longer than Clark planned, weaving between towering skeletons and glass cases of articulated claws. Bruce pauses to point out the serrations on a tooth the size of Clark’s hand, then to explain the difference between fossilized bone and mineral cast, his voice low and steady, full of facts that seem to unspool effortlessly from memory.

They pass a reconstructed diorama where a sauropod wades through a swamp, plastic fronds curling toward painted skies, and a row of smaller cases displaying fossilized eggs, each one haloed by careful lighting. A child tugs on his mother’s sleeve nearby, whispering about the “dinosaur babies.” Bruce glances over, expression softening almost imperceptibly before he moves them along.

Clark asks a question now and then—half to keep him going, half because he actually wants to know.

Eventually, they wander into other wings. The anthropology section earns only a polite pause from Bruce, his eyes flicking across ceremonial masks, chipped obsidian blades, and pottery sealed behind tempered glass. The faint scent of polished wood and linen text panels hangs in the air. But it’s the mineral hall that slows them both, Clark’s steps more careful as light refracts off quartz columns and cases of raw sapphire.

It’s not as if he has any particular interest in these things. He was a journalist, a bodyguard, and had no real hobbies outside of those—unless you counted the occasional pick-up game or his now full-time occupation of watching Bruce Wayne exist. Maybe he should find something. It would probably be healthy to do something other than follow Bruce’s every shift in expression like it’s breaking news.

“Ma isn’t big on jewelry,” Clark says, leaning toward a case of pale, needled crystal labeled mesolite. The lighting makes each needle glow faintly against the dark velvet backing, as if the whole cluster could dissolve into smoke at a touch. “But I think even she would like some of these. How does a museum even gather this much?”

Bruce glances over the case, then at the next, where hunks of amethyst catch the light in jagged lavender bursts. “Donations, mostly. Estates, universities, private collectors who finally realize their attic isn’t a safe place for half a million dollars’ worth of mineral.” He tilts his head, eyes flicking over the placard. “Some are bought at auction, but the better museums prefer provenance over price tags. You don’t want a piece smuggled out of a war zone making the news later.”

He moves on to a slab of tiger’s eye, golden bands flashing in the overhead lights. “And sometimes, they’re found on survey digs for entirely unrelated projects. Roads, pipelines, housing developments. Someone with a trained eye catches it before the bulldozers do. I’ve had a few contracts like that—land developments, I mean. Not the digging part.”

Clark hums, watching the way Bruce’s fingertips hover just shy of the glass, like there’s a reflex in him to touch and he’s just barely restraining it. “Guess that explains how you know so much.”

Bruce glances at him sidelong. “I read the maps they give me.”

They circle the room in an easy loop, past rows of quartz and calcite, a case of meteor fragments no bigger than a fist, each one tagged with the year it fell. Clark’s attention catches on a tall glass column filled with tourmaline—deep greens, pale pinks, slabs so clear they look like they’ve been frozen mid-melt.

He steps closer, leaning in just enough to catch the way the light fractures through each crystal. “Huh.” His voice is low, almost to himself. “They look like… little frozen forests.”

Bruce comes to stand beside him, reading the plaque. “Tourmaline. Silicate mineral. Comes in just about every color you can think of. Heat it, and it holds an electrical charge for hours.” 

“I like how smart you are,” Clark says absently, still watching the light dance through the crystals. “I don’t know anything about these things. I feel like I’ve got my own personal guide.”

He isn’t expecting the faint red that creeps into Bruce’s face—visible even in the low museum lighting, half-shadowed under the glass cases. Bruce’s eyes flick away, pretending to study the next placard.

“You’re the only one that calls me that,” he murmurs, voice quieter than before, as if the admission is both an answer and a deflection.

Clark knows that. Brucie Wayne is supposed to be a stupid, careless bimbo of a man—someone who barely remembers which fork to use, let alone the tensile strength of tourmaline. Nobody expects him to know much of anything except maybe how a mai tai is made, if that. Clark hates it.

“You are,” he says again, more firmly this time. “Smart. Crazy smart. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

Definitely not how an employee should be speaking to his boss. But in this moment, with Bruce looking like he might shrink from the compliment, Clark finds it hard to care.

Bruce’s eyes dart back to the display case, lingering on a slab of black-green stone. His mouth tightens, then loosens again, as though he’s cycling through possible responses and discarding each one. The faint flush on his cheekbones hasn’t faded. “…thank you,” he says finally, and it’s so quiet Clark almost misses it. Bruce clears his throat, straightens his posture, and forces a flicker of composure back into place. “Uhm. Let’s go to the store and look for those hats I told you about.”

It’s abrupt, clearly meant to redirect, but Clark lets it happen. 

They leave the minerals hall behind, the polished glass and cool white light giving way to the warmer, slightly cluttered glow of the gift shop. It smells faintly of paper, cotton, and whatever overly sweet candle someone thought would entice tourists to linger.

Bruce doesn’t head straight for the registers like Clark half expects. Instead, he slows near a rack of postcards, flipping one over to read the blurb before tucking it back in place. “I used to collect these when I traveled,” he says absently. “I’d send them to Alfred from hotels.”

Clark watches him drift toward a wall of hats—wide brims, baseball caps with embroidered logos, bucket hats patterned with dinosaurs. Bruce takes one down, tests the brim between his fingers like he’s checking the quality of a suit.

“Not bad,” he murmurs, then glances over his shoulder. “What do you think?”

Clark pretends to study it. “Depends. Are we looking for functional or for making a statement?”

Bruce’s mouth curves faintly. “Both. Always both.”

They browse in easy silence after that—Clark picking up a snow globe shaped like a fossilized trilobite, Bruce weighing a book in his hand as though deciding whether it’s worth the space in his library. Every now and then, Clark catches him lingering on the displays a little longer than necessary, the same way he does in the museum proper.

Unfortunately for Bruce, the hats he’d mentioned earlier were definitely too small for either of them—more suited for children or, at best, someone with a head two sizes smaller. He replaces the last one with a faint, almost imperceptible sigh.

Disappointed but not deterred, he drifts toward a turning display of keychains. They click and rattle softly as he spins the rack with one finger, his gaze sharp in that way Clark’s come to recognize as focused rather than idle. Little metal dinosaurs, miniature fossil casts, tiny polished stones in wire cages—Bruce studies each like he’s weighing its merit as a keepsake.

Clark steps up beside him, plucking one shaped like an ammonite from the rack. “For your keys, or just to have something to fidget with during meetings?”

Bruce tilts his head. “Both,” he says, almost seriously, before putting it back and selecting a silver dinosaur-shaped charm. Two, in fact—what Clark recognizes now as a sauropod and a Tyrannosaurus rex.

“I like these best,” Bruce says, turning them over in his palm. His thumb traces the fine etching along the ribs of the sauropod, then the jagged line of the tyrannosaur’s teeth, as though he’s assessing craftsmanship rather than novelty. 

Clark leans a little closer, peering at them. “Matching set?”

Bruce hums. “Maybe I’ll keep one and give the other to Alfred. Though I’m not sure which of us would appreciate it more.”

By the time they leave the museum, Clark is the one holding the little paper bag with the two keychains rattling softly at the bottom. The sun is already sliding low over the skyline, painting the glass facades around them in warm gold as they walk to the car.

The drive back is quiet in the way Clark has come to appreciate—no need to fill the space with anything but the muted hum of the engine and the occasional turn signal. Bruce sits in the passenger seat, one hand loosely curled on his knee, the other drumming out a steady rhythm against the door. A leftover habit from the crowded halls, Clark thinks.

They turn into the manor’s long driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tires. Clark eases the car forward, slowing as the front steps come into view.

“Thank you for today.” Bruce’s voice is quieter than usual, almost hesitant, and it makes Clark glance over as he pulls the car into park. “I know I can be… a lot for you. You always have to chase me around, deal with my nonsense. You’re too patient with me. You were so thoughtful today…”

Clark feels a little lost at the sudden turn in conversation, the gratitude sounding so unguarded that he isn’t sure what to do with it.

Bruce keeps going before he can respond. “I had a lot of fun. So… just, thank you for not telling me to shut up, or anything of the sort.”

He twists slightly in his seat, reaching back into the shadows of the backseat where Clark left the paper bag from the museum gift shop. The soft rustle of tissue paper fills the car as Bruce fishes out the silver sauropod keychain. Without a word, he takes Clark’s hand and presses the little charm into his palm.

“We can match,” he says simply.

Bruce’s fingers curl Clark’s around it, holding them there for a moment before letting go. The cool weight of the metal sits against Clark’s skin, somehow heavier for what it means. He loves him so much it hurts, a sharp, clean ache in his chest.

“You’re giving this to me?” he asks, almost disbelieving.

Bruce shrugs, looking away toward the windshield. “Who else would I give it to?”

Clark laughs under his breath, thumb brushing over the tiny, smooth shape. He doesn’t trust himself to say more without giving something away.

Three

 Clark doesn't care if heaven is real, because he's already experienced it, having sex with Bruce Wayne. 

He’s a little smug about it, though that isn’t exactly the gentlemanly thing to be thinking while Bruce’s mouth is warm against the side of his throat. Better smug than teary, Clark decides, because the truth is cruel enough: having a taste of him without having all of him is its own kind of slow, exquisite torture. And the thing is—no one gets to have this. In all the years Clark has known him, Bruce has never given in like this with anyone else.

Alfred once told him there’d been a few years when things got really rough for Bruce. Clark doesn’t know the details—just that Bruce had all but vanished from public life for a stretch—but he can picture it, can imagine the shape of the storms that must’ve passed through him.

His poor, sweet prince. Untouchable to the world. Untouchable to Clark—except for moments like this, where Bruce lets the armor slip just enough to let him in.

Bruce’s fingers curl in the hem of his shirt, knuckles grazing his skin as if even fabric is an obstacle he can’t stand. Warm palms slide up Clark’s ribs, tracing, testing, hungry for anything they can hold. They shouldn’t be doing this here. One sound too loud, one gasp caught in the wrong place, and one of Bruce’s employees will be knocking to check on poor, fragile Brucie Wayne. And then what?

Clark has him half-seated on the desk, half in his arms, Bruce’s legs hooked tight around his waist like he’s holding on for survival. Something important clattered to the floor a while ago, maybe papers, maybe glass—Clark can’t bring himself to care. Not when Bruce’s mouth is back on his, hot and certain, stealing the air from his lungs.

“Hurry up,” Bruce pants, the words catching against Clark’s lips. He tastes faintly of his favorite cookies, that delicate strawberry shortbread Alfred slips into his briefcase so there’s something sweet to soften his day. The flavor clings to him even now, blending with the warm press of his breath.

Clark’s hands are already moving, unfastening Bruce’s slacks with a quick, practiced motion. His palms find bare skin—heat, smooth muscle, the taut flex beneath his touch. Bruce’s thighs tense under his grasp, drawing him closer, anchoring him there. One shift of weight and Clark can feel the full press of him, every line of his body urging him forward.

He wants to tease—Can’t get enough, can you? You need me as much as I need you. You want me. But the words knot in his throat, because the truth is he’s just as far gone. Just as starved. Every breath between them tastes like surrender, and Clark’s sure if he lets himself speak, Bruce will hear the desperation in his voice. His hands aren’t steady as he works the last of Bruce’s buttons, dragging the slacks low on his hips to reveal sleek black boxers that do nothing to hide him. The thin fabric is stretched tight, heat radiating through it. Clark presses his palm there, slow, deliberate—feeling the twitch beneath his touch.

Bruce’s breath hitches, head tipping back as his hips snap forward, chasing the pressure.

“I should stop,” Clark murmurs, though his hand doesn’t move away.

Bruce’s fingers twist in his hair, dragging him in with a rough, almost possessive tug. “Don’t you dare—” the last word shatters on a sharp inhale, “—I’ll lower your pay. Ah—”

“You wouldn’t.” Clark’s mouth finds his neck, then trails lower, marking him where only Clark will ever see.

“Don’t test me.” Bruce fumbles at his waistband, shoving Clark’s slacks down as far as the angle allows, growling when the fabric catches against his hooked legs. “Please… fuck—hurry.”

Clark's fingers find the waistband of his boxers, yanking them down with a sharp tug. His cock springs free, flushed and leaking, the head already glistening with need. It's a thing of beauty, really, almost pretty, the kind of cock that makes a man look twice. Or three times. Or in Clark's case, constantly stare until he's memorized every ridge and vein. Clark's hand wraps around him, stroking slowly, feeling the weight of him, the heat. He's so hard himself, and it's all for Bruce. Because of Bruce. The knowledge sends a thrill down his spine, settling in his gut like a brand.

Bruce's hips jerk forward, chasing his touch, a broken moan falling from his lips. His head tips back, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard.

"Fuck, Clark..." His voice is low, rough with desire. It sends a shiver down Clark's spine, his name falling from those pretty lips like a prayer. Or a plea.

Clark's thumb swipes over the leaking tip, smearing the bead of pre-cum over the swollen head. “We can't go all the way, Bruce. We don't have enough time.” Clark’s words come out low, ragged, his breath ghosting over Bruce’s jaw as his hand keeps moving, deliberate and firm. The protest is half-hearted at best, his thumb circling the slick head before sliding down again, savoring the way Bruce’s thighs tense around him.

Bruce makes a sound that’s nearly a growl, his fingers fisting in the fabric of Clark’s shirt like he might tear it. “Then make it count,” he grits out, hips stuttering against Clark’s hand. The heat between them is almost suffocating, every small movement magnified by how close they are, how little space is left to give.

Clark leans in, lips brushing Bruce’s ear. “I always do,” he murmurs, and there’s a possessive edge to it—like a promise and a warning rolled into one—before his mouth is back on Bruce’s throat, teeth scraping over the pulse that hammers there.

Bruce shudders, every breath coming shorter, and Clark can feel it—how close he’s getting, how badly he’s trying not to fall apart too fast. It’s intoxicating, that tension, that edge. Clark’s hand moves faster, and Bruce’s knees press tighter around his hips as if to trap him there, to keep him from pulling away.

Maybe he should care—about his own release, about fairness—but he doesn’t. It’s never about that. Every time they’re together like this, every time Clark is given the gift of feeling Bruce under his hands, breathing hard for him, every other want falls away. All that matters is drawing those sounds out of him, chasing the small shifts in his body that mean Clark has found the right spot, the right rhythm.

What else could possibly matter when he has Bruce like this—warm, tense, trusting him enough to let go? Clark would go without for the rest of his life if it meant he could keep learning every way Bruce comes apart.

Bruce's hands scrabble at Clark's shoulders, blunt nails digging into his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. His hips are moving faster now, fucking into the tight circle of Clark's fist with short, sharp jerks. The desk creaks beneath them, the sound mingling with the harsh rasp of Bruce's breathing and the slick, filthy noise of Clark's hand working over his cock.

"Clark, oh god..." Bruce's words dissolve into a litany of curses, each one punctuated by a hitch in his breath or a shudder through his frame. He's close, and Clark can feel it—the way his cock throbs and pulses, the heat of him building to a fever pitch.

Bruce’s fingers clamp tight around his wrist, a sudden, desperate grip that stills Clark’s movements mid-stroke. The jolt of it sends a pang of uncertainty through him—had he pushed too far, done something wrong? But before the thought can fully form, Bruce is dragging his hand away, guiding him with unsteady precision until Clark’s own arousal is freed and pressed flush against him.

The heat where they meet is searing, their bodies sliding together with a wet, obscene sound that makes Clark’s breath catch. The contact is raw and overwhelming—every nerve in his spine lights up, a sharp, electric spark racing through him, burning a path to the base of his skull. Bruce’s chest is heaving against his, the shallow tremor in his hips sending friction surging between them, and Clark has to grit his teeth to keep from falling apart right there. 

Bruce’s grip tightens around their cocks, drawing them flush, and Clark swears he can feel the heat radiating off him through every nerve in his body. It’s too much and nowhere near enough. The drag of Bruce’s skin against his sends a bolt of molten electricity snapping up his spine, making his breath catch mid-pant.

Bruce’s forehead presses to his, their noses almost brushing, breaths tangling in the scant space between them. Harsh, uneven. Bruce’s lashes flutter against the high flush in his cheeks, his jaw tight like he’s holding himself together by sheer will alone. But his body tells the truth—hips rolling with a helpless, shuddering rhythm, betraying a hunger that’s raw and relentless.

“Can you—ugh—” The sound is half-plea, half-growl, like he hates asking but can’t stop himself. “I need—” The rest breaks apart into a low, strangled noise as his hips buck forward, chasing the friction like it’s oxygen.

Clark’s palms slide down, cupping the solid weight of his ass, digging into muscle just to anchor Bruce there—close enough to feel every desperate pulse, every tremor. He wants to memorize the exact shape of him, the way he fits in Clark’s hands, the way his body thrums like a live wire against his own. He wants Bruce so deep in his marrow that even eternity couldn’t burn him out.

“I know,” Clark murmurs, voice low and sure, like a promise only Bruce will ever hear. And he does know—knows it because he needs it too, craves it the same way he craves air, sunlight, every vital thing that makes him alive.

It’s then when Clark registers knocking — a steady, incessant thing, sharp and hollow against the wood. It cuts through the haze like a blade, dragging him halfway back to reality. The sound immediately makes him annoyed beyond belief, a deep, territorial frustration curling in his gut. Bruce makes a low sound in his throat, but he doesn’t move away.

The knock comes again, more insistent this time.

Clark can feel Bruce’s heart hammering against his chest, their bodies pressed so close there’s not a breath between them. His grip on Clark’s waist tightens as if he could hold him here through sheer force of will. Clark’s lips almost brush his temple when he murmurs, low enough for Bruce alone, “Ignore it.”

Bruce huffs, breath hot against his jaw, and for a second it seems like he might. But then—another knock, this one followed by a brisk, muffled voice.

“Mr. Wayne? You asked me to bring the Gotham Energy merger file—”

The secretary. Clark recognizes her tone, polite but efficient, utterly unaware she’s intruding on something dangerous.

He shouldn’t, but Clark grinds against him again, slow enough to make it a threat, gripping a little harder around them, almost daring Bruce to lose that last shred of composure. Bruce looks like he wants to—like he could—mouth parting just slightly, a faint hitch breaking his breath before he reins it back in.

Clark wonders how much it would take to break him.

Bruce’s head tips forward until his forehead presses harder against Clark’s, the contact almost bruising, hands tightening as though they could anchor them both. His jaw flexes, the barest flash of teeth catching between his lips. “Five minutes,” he calls, the words just this side of strained, the rasp in his voice raw enough that Clark feels it low in his stomach.

He can feel Bruce’s pulse hammering where their wrists brush, each thud a countdown Clark doesn’t want to end.

He doesn't bother waiting for the sound of footsteps leaving. If his secretary hears bruces pleasure , thats nobody's fault but her own. Not that Clark is keen on sharing, but if it cant be helped…

“You ass,” bruce pants against his neck. “What if you traumatized the poor woman?”

Clark huffs a laugh, low and unrepentant, the sound curling warm against Bruce’s skin. “Then she’ll file for hazard pay.” His mouth is still close enough that every word brushes hot over the sensitive place just below Bruce’s ear, and he feels Bruce’s whole frame give a minute, involuntary shiver.

Bruce’s grip tightens on him—not to push him away, not really, but in that half-conscious way he does when something is threatening to slip past the iron control he keeps coiled tight. Clark feels it like a challenge.

“You’re impossible,” Bruce mutters, but it comes out ragged, more breath than voice. The pulse under Clark’s thumb is still a frantic drumbeat, and Clark wonders—like he always does—how much of that is because of him, and how much is because Bruce hates being cornered like this.

Clark draws back just enough to meet his eyes, catching the sharp, barely-contained edge there. “Five minutes,” he says, almost gently, but the curve of his mouth is pure provocation. “Better make ’em count.”

Bruce's eyes flash, a dark, dangerous glint that sends a thrill down Clark's spine. It's the look of a man who's used to getting what he wants, no matter the cost. The look of a man who's never been told no, and has no intention of starting now.His hands tighten around Clark's waist, fingers digging into the muscle there hard enough to leave bruises. He's not a small man, Bruce - lean and wiry, all coiled strength and barely leashed power. When he moves, it's with a sudden, explosive force that catches Clark off guard every time.

Bruce surges forward, catching Clark's mouth in a brutal kiss that's all teeth and tongue and barely restrained hunger. He tastes like sugar, like every dark, forbidden thing Clark has ever wanted. Like home.

Clark meets him kiss for kiss, bite for bite, his own desire rising to match Bruce's in a dizzying rush. He wants to devour him, wants to swallow him whole and keep him there, trapped in the cage of his body until he can't remember his own name, can't remember anything but the way Clark makes him feel.

He wants to tell Bruce he loves him, because what else could this be but love?

Bruce's hips surge forward, driving against Clark with a desperate, almost punishing rhythm. The desk creaks and shudders beneath them, the sound mingling with the harsh rasp of their breathing and the slick, filthy noise of skin on skin. Bruce's fingers tangle in Clark's hair, gripping tight, hard enough to make his eyes water. It's a good kind of pain, it makes everything else fade away until there's nothing left but the hot, aching need building between them.

Bruce hides his face against Clark's neck, an attempt at muffling sound. But Clark won't let him. Can't let him. Not when he's so beautiful like this, lost in pleasure, lost in him. Clark wants to see him come undone, wants to feel him shatter apart and put the pieces back together again. He no longer cares who hears them. Maybe he never did. 

“Don’t,” Clark breathes, their mouths barely a breath apart. “Don’t hide from me.”

Bruce’s eyes are glassy, fever-bright, his lips parted and trembling. He looks wrecked—gorgeous, furious at being seen like this, and too far gone to pull away. Clark wants him like this always.

Four

Sometimes, Bruce has a date. 

Clark has never once liked them. Not a single one. He tells himself it’s not jealousy, not really—that word feels too small, too human for what twists in his chest when Bruce leans his arm toward someone else. But whatever it is, it’s ugly. A slow, grinding disconnection that settles in his ribs until breathing feels like work.

When your new partner meets your friends, they’re supposed to try, at least a little—to win them over, to smile and charm and make peace with the people already in your life. But Clark isn’t Bruce’s friend, not to anyone looking in. He’s a name on a payroll. A shadow in a suit. No one bothers to impress the hired help.

He’s not meant to be seen, except when someone needs a door opened or a car brought around. And so, when Bruce has a date, Clark becomes what he’s supposed to be—an outline, a piece of background furniture. The perfect invisible man.

“Toss this,” the woman says, handing him something—an empty wrapper, a scrap of receipt, it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t look at him as she says it. She’s the kind of woman who’s used to being obeyed without eye contact.

Clark looks at her anyway.

She’s got light brown hair that turns almost copper under the garage lights, twisted up in a way meant to look effortless. He’s seen her before, around events and charity dinners, floating through rooms like smoke—someone’s plus-one, someone else’s rumor. Usually she wears gauzy, expensive things, the kind that hang loose and whisper wealth. But not tonight. Tonight, she’s traded silk for something tighter, sharper, deliberate. It cinches her waist and lifts her chest, a statement more than a choice.

Clark wonders, absently, if Bruce told her she looked beautiful. He probably did. Bruce always knows what to say when he’s supposed to.

Clark doesn’t move. His job is to guard Bruce Wayne, not to pick up after strangers. And Bruce—his Bruce—would never ask him to. The thought of it feels almost sacrilegious.

He stays where he is, posture immaculate, the quiet hum of the garage filling the silence between them.

When she notices that he hasn’t obeyed, her eyes narrow, sharp with disbelief. She’s not used to being ignored. Her mouth opens, a retort forming—

—and then Bruce steps in.

The sound of polished shoes on concrete. The soft click of cufflinks being adjusted.

She falters, hand falling back to her side, and the thin annoyance on her face hardens into something uglier—directed squarely at Clark, as though his stillness has humiliated her. He can feel it, the sharp weight of her stare, but he doesn’t return it. He isn’t interested in her, or in the small power games that come so naturally to people like her. He’s looking at Bruce.

It happens so fast he almost doubts it later, but for a fraction of a second, Clark thinks they’re having a conversation—silent, wordless, impossible. Bruce’s expression slips, only slightly, but enough for Clark to catch it: the careful brightness fading, the mask thinning around the edges. In that brief lapse, Bruce looks different. Not Brucie Wayne, not the man who smiles for headlines and empty flattery, but something quieter and harder. A soldier, maybe—steady, alert, tired of pretending. This is a man who has spent a lifetime learning how to hold his ground without ever letting it show.

And then, like the brief blink of a camera flash, it’s gone. Bruce straightens, the false light returns to his eyes, and the smile—perfect, disarming, unreal—settles easily back into place.

“Ready to go?” he says, voice even and bright.

The woman shifts, instantly melting into warmth at the sound of it, eager to be the one that smile is meant for. Clark stays still. He watches Bruce fix his cufflinks with slow precision, sees the faint movement of his jaw, the shadow of something left unsaid. She’s waiting for Bruce to scold him, to say something that puts the world back in the right shape. But Bruce doesn’t.

Instead, he turns, and for one breath their eyes meet again.

It’s a small thing, hardly anything at all, but Clark feels it like a touch. It’s there in the weight of that glance—the quiet apology Bruce will never voice, the faint understanding of what this costs them both. And yet, Bruce keeps smiling. The charming, hollow kind of smile that belongs to the public and not to Clark.

He’s Brucie tonight. Clark can tell by the way his gaze slides past him, by how easily he can pretend Clark isn’t there. The real Bruce, the one Clark knows in fragments and quiet hours, has already gone still inside him.

“You’ll be fine, won’t you?” Bruce asks, and Clark almost smiles at the gentleness in his tone. Almost.

“Oh, come on,” the woman whines, hanging on his arm. “We’ll be late.”

Bruce gives her a soft laugh, indulgent and practiced, then looks back at Clark, as if needing that one last confirmation before stepping into someone else’s night. “So?”

“Yes, sir,” Clark says, and though it sounds obedient, the words sit wrong in his mouth. He’s supposed to stay home tonight. He always does when Bruce has a date—at Bruce’s request, though he’s never asked why. Maybe it’s about privacy. Maybe Bruce knows how much it hurts him to watch. Maybe it’s mercy, of a kind.

Bruce’s smile falters, barely, then resets. He looks like he might speak, like some quiet truth has risen too high to be swallowed back down. But he only exhales, fixes his sleeve, and leaves it there between them.

He wants to say more. Clark can see it. But he doesn’t.

He never does.

About an hour after Bruce leaves, Clark calls Lois.

Her face fills the screen at an awkward angle—half chin, half ceiling—before she props her phone up against something on her desk. When she finally settles, she’s cross-legged in her chair, pajamas wrinkled, a laptop open beside her. A bowl of cereal sits within reach, half-eaten, the pastel shapes of Lucky Charms floating lazily on the surface. She grins at him around a mouthful of sugar.

“Smallville,” she says once she’s swallowed. “Date night?”

He exhales, loosening his tie until the knot slips against his collarbone. “You know it.”

Lois lifts her spoon in mock salute. “Yikes. Was she absolutely awful?”

“You know so.”

She winces, sympathetic, then hums around another bite of cereal. “Poor thing. You always sound like you’ve just been drafted into emotional war whenever Wayne goes on one of those.”

Clark smiles faintly, the kind that never quite reaches his eyes. Lois has always been able to read him, even when he doesn’t want her to.

“What are the chances you get time to come home?” she asks. “Jimmy and I were invited to the Metropolis Zoo reopening. You know how the giraffes got out last year? They’ve built new enclosures—smart ones this time, apparently. The locks are magnetic, they even wrote an article about it. I’ll send it to you.”

Clark leans back in his chair, half-listening, half not. Zoo animals. Locks. Containment. He pictures long corridors, glass walls, creatures pacing behind them—beautiful, caged things that don’t belong where they are. And then, inevitably, he thinks of Bruce. Bruce at the museum, eyes bright and wide as a boy’s, face lit up by fossil light.

“I don’t think so, Lo,” he says softly. “Get me a souvenir, though?”

“Sure thing,” she says, cheerful as ever. “What do you want? They’ve got lenticular mugs with pandas on them. Or—hold on—maybe I’ll get you one of those mood rings. You could use the practice.”

Clark laughs under his breath. “Yeah. Maybe I could.”

For a moment, Lois just looks at him. The sound of her spoon clinking against the cereal bowl fills the pause, light and domestic in a way that makes the quiet between them feel heavier. Then she lowers the spoon and says, gently, “You know he doesn’t do it to be mean, don’t you?”

At first he doesn’t understand. He blinks at the screen, trying to trace the shift in her tone. Then he realizes what she’s seen—whatever small betrayal his face has given him away with. He sighs, running a hand through his hair.

“He’s not…” Clark starts, searching for the right words. “He’s not like the articles make him out to be, Lois. I know that. I mean, I know him better than most people do, and that’s not just me tooting my own horn.” A weak smile touches his mouth. “He likes going out sometimes, though. I’m not… I’m not fun that way.”

Lois frowns, chin propped on her hand. Her eyes are softer now—less reporter, more friend. “No, I meant—he doesn’t date for fun. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all smoke and mirrors, Smallville.”

Clark stops at that, phone still in hand. He’s halfway across the hall now, heading toward his room, the lights of the manor dim and gold around him. “What are you talking about?” he asks, voice low, though a part of him isn’t sure he wants to know.

Lois sits up straighter, tucking her legs under herself as she thinks. “I think he’s… lonely,” she says finally, slow and careful, like she’s building the thought as she speaks. “All that money, the parties, the noise—it’s like camouflage. People like him don’t date because they’re looking for love. They date because it keeps people from asking what they really want.”

Clark’s hand tightens around the phone, thumb brushing the edge of the case. He wants to tell her she’s wrong, that Bruce isn’t lonely, not really—that he’s busy, complicated, unreadable, yes, but not lonely. But the word lands too cleanly. It sits there between them, fitting too well to deny.

“I looked into the date he had last time. That girl from renewable energy? She donated a stupid amount of money to multiple of his charities.” Lois’s voice softens even more. “You told me once he doesn’t like being touched unless he’s the one deciding when. That sounds like someone who wants control, not company.”

Clark exhales slowly. “He’s… not cold,” he says after a moment, though it sounds less like an argument than a confession. “He’s just careful. About who gets in.”

“Yeah,” Lois says, smiling a little, though it’s a sad colored smile. “And you’re already in, Clark. You’ve been in for a long time. Maybe he’s just not ready to admit it yet.”

The call goes quiet for a beat, the sound of her cereal spoon tapping faintly again, grounding the moment.

Clark opens his mouth, then closes it. There’s nothing he can say to that that won’t give too much away.

“Get some sleep, Smallville,” Lois says finally, like she’s letting him off the hook. “You look wrecked.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Goodnight, Lo.”

He hangs up before the silence can stretch too far, the blue light of the phone screen fading against his palm. The manor feels too large all at once, its corridors humming with quiet that only comes from wealth and absence. Clark locks his door out of habit, though there’s no reason to.

For a long time, he just stands there in the dim light, thinking about camouflage.

The woman doesn’t last long in his circle. Clark doesn’t know the details—he never does—but he’s there when it ends.

She’s shouting in the entryway, voice high and trembling with anger that  can only come from embarrassment. She calls Bruce every name she can think of—liar, manipulator, rotten little fraud—and Clark just stands there, waiting for her to run out of words. When she finally does, he opens the door for her. Because that’s his job.

Bruce doesn’t flinch through any of it. Doesn’t defend himself, doesn’t argue, doesn’t explain. He just watches her go, that familiar, faintly amused smile ghosting across his mouth—the one that hides more than it reveals. When the door shuts and the house is quiet again, he looks at Clark like nothing happened.

“Let’s go get a burger,” he says, tone light, almost boyish. “Don’t tell Alfred and I’ll buy you a milkshake.”

It’s so absurd, so perfectly Bruce, that Clark almost laughs. Instead, he nods, the warmth that floods through him immediate and shameful.

A few weeks later, the memory of that night still hums quietly in the back of his mind, even as the days blur into a steady rhythm of work and silence. Bruce has been buried under paperwork for what feels like days. Endless meetings, contracts, responsibilities that that even he can’t charm his way out of. The manor has been dim lately, the rooms heavy with rain and the low hum of the city beyond the hills.

Clark stands by the window, watching the gray water trace down the glass. Behind him, Bruce signs something without looking up. Another paper, another deal. He’s done this a dozen times just this hour, the scratch of his pen the only sound in the room.

Clark’s still in his usual place—half in the shadows, quiet, unacknowledged. Sometimes he imagines Martha Wayne standing in this same office decades ago, picking out wallpaper that would never change. Something permanent. Something that would outlast her. He wonders if Bruce notices how he’s become part of that same pattern, just another fixed thing in the background.

The knock comes soft but certain. Alfred’s voice follows: “Master Bruce, I’d like to steal away your bodyguard for a moment. I have some heavy items that need lifting.”

Bruce doesn’t look up. His eyes stay on the paper, pen moving, jaw set in that familiar, focused line. “Mm. Take him,” he says absently, waving a hand.

Clark feels the sting even though he knows better. Bruce isn’t dismissive, not really—just consumed, drawn so deep into whatever problem he’s solving that the world narrows to the space between his eyes and the page. Still, it aches, in that small, stupid way it always does, to be waved off so easily.

He tells himself Bruce will look up when he comes back. He almost always does.

It’s about fifteen minutes later, while Clark is hefting boxes of canned food into the back of the truck for Bruce’s monthly donation to the shelter in central Gotham, that he realizes how far away he’s gone. The rain has softened into a thin mist, the kind that seeps into everything, and the scent of wet earth and cardboard mixes with the faint metallic tang of the truck bed. He moves on muscle memory, barely registering the weight in his arms.

He’s somewhere else entirely—lost in thoughts that blur and overlap. Dinosaurs, of course. The slow, swaying peace of the cows on his parents’ farm. The absurd image of a child chasing fireflies in the yard at dusk. Strange, wandering thoughts for a man who never lets himself wander.

Alfred’s the one who brings him back. The older man clears his throat, not sharply but enough to draw Clark’s focus. “I’m glad to have you here,” he says, almost conversational, like the comment doesn’t carry the weight it does.

Clark straightens, balancing a box against his hip. “Sure,” he says, a little distracted. “I don’t mind helping.”

But Alfred is already shaking his head, a faint, knowing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That’s not what I meant, Master Kent.”

Clark pauses, the words hanging between them, the mist turning to rain again in the space of their silence. Alfred looks at him properly now, eyes as kind as they are sharp—measuring, maybe, or deciding how much to say.

For a moment, Clark doesn’t know what to do with that gaze. He’s spent so long being unseen, blending into the background of Bruce’s life, that being acknowledged feels like being caught in the light.

He looks down, adjusts the box in his hands. “You mean—”

“I mean,” Alfred interrupts gently, “that I’m glad it’s you. Here. With him.”

Clark swallows, unsure what to say. The truck door creaks under the rain, and somewhere inside the house, a clock strikes the half hour.

Alfred gives him that same small, infuriatingly patient smile. “He’s not an easy man, our Bruce. Never has been. But you make him easier.”

Clark wants to laugh, or argue, or ask what exactly that means. Instead, he sets the box down and just nods. “I try,” he says quietly.

“I know you do,” Alfred replies. He steps forward to nudge a few boxes aside, making space for more, his movements deliberate, unhurried. “When Master Bruce was twenty,” he begins, voice gentle but measured, “he got into a terrible argument with a friend of his. They’d known each other since childhood, though I wouldn’t call them close at the time. Bruce’s grief had a way of isolating him, as grief often does, and true friendships were rare. Harvey and young Mr. Queen were exceptions, of course, though even those ties have thinned with the years.”

Alfred pauses, glancing toward the rain-slick driveway as though the memory itself stands there. “This friend, however—Bruce loved him dearly. And I don’t mean that lightly. The boy wasn’t from the same world as Bruce, you see. Not the same class, not the same expectations. The wealthy can be cruel about such things. To their minds, compassion is a kind of weakness.”

He looks back at Clark, one brow lifting faintly. “But Bruce has never been cruel. For all his armor, all his posturing, he’s always been soft. Not weak, mind you—soft. There’s a difference. It’s what frightens him most.”

Clark stands there quietly, the rain starting to come down harder now, drumming against the truck roof in soft, rhythmic bursts. He doesn’t move to load another box. He just listens.

He folds his hands behind his back, gaze drifting up toward the manor windows—gray glass streaked with rain. “I think part of him fears being left behind,” he says quietly. “When he was a boy, he used to cry at night. Loud, awful sobs at first, the kind that rattled the doors, but sometimes he’d go quiet. So quiet you could hardly hear him breathe. I’d find him sitting there, small as anything, trying to make himself invisible. There’s nothing so terrible as a child who’s learned how to hide his grief.”

Clark doesn’t speak. He isn’t sure he could if he tried. The image of Bruce—small, lonely, silent—lodges somewhere deep, where all his pity and affection blur together into something heavier.

“These women he sees,” Alfred continues, voice carrying that particular mix of affection and resignation, “they’re nothing but accessories to him. And they know they are. He’s honest about it, in his way. Tells them not to expect anything from him, that it’s all part of the act. A performance, as so much of his life has become.”

Alfred sighs, faint and weary, the sound of someone who has watched a boy grow into a man and learned how little that changes certain things. “I hardly think he’s ever kissed even a third of them. Not unless the cameras are on. He can feign intimacy well enough for a headline, but real closeness—” He shakes his head. “That’s far rarer.”

Clark shifts the last crate into place, but the movement feels mechanical. He’s still thinking of what Alfred said—about the act, about the boy who cried and then learned to quiet himself. About how much of Bruce’s life is built around pretending not to need what he can’t allow himself to want.

When Alfred glances over, his eyes are knowing in that careful, merciful way of his. “You see now, perhaps, why I said I’m glad it’s you here,” he says.

Clark looks down, hands flexing against the damp wood of the truck bed. “Yeah,” he says, barely above a whisper. “I see.”

But he doesn’t. Not really. Not in the way Alfred wants him to.

He stands there for a long moment, the rain threading softly through his hair, the smell of wet pavement filling the silence between them. He tells himself he understands—that he’s seen Bruce at his most unguarded, at his truest. But even as he thinks it, he feels the uncertainty gnawing at the edges of the thought.

How much of Bruce is performance, and how much is real? Clark has never been entirely sure. He assumes—perhaps arrogantly—that he can tell the difference, that he can see through every polished smile and measured silence. That the Bruce he knows in private is the real one: the one who kisses him softly before he’s fully awake, who steals his fries with the guileless satisfaction of a child, who lets Clark spin him by the waist in the kitchen just to hear him laugh.

That’s the Bruce he keeps in his heart, the one that feels honest.

But maybe that’s its own illusion. Maybe Bruce has more masks than Clark realizes, and maybe the version Clark loves is just another one—a softer act meant for him alone.

The thought unsettles him more than he wants to admit. He glances toward the manor, its windows blurred and glowing faintly through the rain. Somewhere behind one of them, Bruce is still sitting at his desk, pen in hand, world held neatly beneath his control.

Clark wonders, not for the first time, if he’s part of that control. If he’s been folded into Bruce’s performance so seamlessly that he’s forgotten it was one.

He exhales slowly, the breath turning to fog in the cold air. “Yeah,” he says again, quieter this time, as if repeating the word might make it true.

 Five

Bruce thinks he might love Clark Kent. 

The thought isn’t sudden when it comes. It arrives the way a change in weather does—slow, unassuming, but impossible to ignore once it’s there. It moves over him like a breeze, pleasant at first, then stinging enough to raise goosebumps along his arms, leaving him no choice but to sit with it, to acknowledge that it exists.

They’re both drunk when he realizes it, months after the gala incident—the one where someone had tried to drug him through his drink and Clark had handled it quietly, efficiently, before Bruce even knew what was happening. His knight, Bruce had thought then, absurdly. For one ridiculous heartbeat he’d pictured Clark astride a white horse, that impossible strength dressed up in myth, and the image had made him laugh into his glass. It was easier to think of Clark as legend than as man, easier to believe in fairy tales than in what was right in front of him.

Since that night, Bruce hadn’t drunk in public. It was a weakness, and he had few enough he could afford. But when the first rare day off finally came—no board meetings, no foundations, no pretense to maintain—he’d allowed himself the indulgence.

“One drink,” he’d said, holding out the bottle like a peace offering. “Pretty please. With a cherry on top.”

Clark had laughed, warm and unguarded, the sound of sunlight breaking through. He’d tried to remember the last time he’d smiled that easily and couldn’t. Around Clark, he never had to pretend at joy.

Clark was bright. Always had been. A quiet kind of brightness that didn’t fade when you stopped looking at it. Living sunlight, Bruce thought, watching him lean against the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair a little damp from the evening rain. The crisp, golden light that cut through even the stormiest of clouds.

They’re in Bruce’s room, the door shut tight in case Alfred decides to scold them for behaving like children. The air smells faintly of whiskey and rain, the soft hum of the city filtering through the window.

Clark has undone most of his uniform—his uniform, Bruce thinks, a little amused. That ridiculous suit he insists Clark wear, pressed and proper, as if professionalism could disguise what they are. As if Clark is only his bodyguard.

He isn’t. He hasn’t been for a long time.

Clark sits on the edge of the bed, tie discarded somewhere on the floor, collar loose, hair falling messily across his forehead. He looks far too human like this, and Bruce can’t decide whether that comforts or terrifies him.

He takes another sip, watching Clark through half-lidded eyes. My best friend, he thinks. The man who takes care of me, who brings me coffee when I forget to eat, who stitches me up in silence and never asks why. The man I kiss every morning without thinking. The one who loves me.

And Bruce—Bruce loves him back. He must. There isn’t a word in any language for the kind of devotion he feels when Clark touches him, steady and certain, when Clark looks at him like he’s worth saving.

They’ve never talked about it, but Bruce figures that’s what this is. Love. Lovers. Partners. Whatever fragile label other people would use, they fit beneath it. The first relationship he hasn’t yet managed to ruin—thoroughly, catastrophically, the way he ruins most things that matter.

He thinks, fleetingly, that maybe this is what it’s supposed to be like. To have something soft and sure, something that doesn’t require him to explain or perform.

Clark leans back on his hands, eyes half-closed, the light from the window painting his face in gold. He hums something tuneless under his breath. It’s so ordinary it aches.

Bruce smiles, dizzy from drink and warmth and the simple nearness of him. For once, it doesn’t feel like pretending. They end up fucking that night. Bruce feels guilty thinking of what he and Clark do as fucking, but despite how gentle Clark can be at moments, there is a pure and passionate violence to him that simply doesn't suit making love. He fucks Bruce like he does everything else. With a single-minded determination to get it right the first time. 

The day after, it’s as if nothing has changed.

Clark brings him coffee first thing in the morning, the way he always does—two sugars, just enough cream to dull the bitterness. He hands over Bruce’s schedule for the day, even though that’s not technically part of his job, and stands there patiently while Bruce fumbles through a drawer for cufflinks. When Bruce can’t decide between two ties, Clark picks the darker one without hesitation.

And then—nothing.

No mention of the night before. No sideways glance, no hesitation in his voice, no trace of embarrassment or recognition. Clark hums as he buttons his sleeves, bright and utterly unbothered, while Bruce feels like his ribcage has been filled with glass.

He tries not to think about it, but the guilt sits heavy in him. Because Clark had been drinking too, and Bruce—well, Bruce had been the one who said it first. The one who leaned in. The one who should’ve known better. He’s always been good at self-recrimination; it’s practically a hobby. Still, this feels worse than most things he’s condemned himself for.

He tells himself he took advantage of his employee—though employee feels like a weak, dishonest word for what Clark really is. Clark has never been just that. He’s the hand that steadies him, the voice that grounds him, the warmth that makes the house feel less like a mausoleum. But if Clark doesn’t remember, if that night was nothing but a blur to him, then Bruce has no right to claim it as anything else.

So he buries it. Pretends. Forces the world back into its usual shape.

Until a week later.

They’re in the elevator, on their way to his office, and it’s early. Bruce hasn’t slept nearly enough, but there’s a meeting no amount of charm could cancel, and he’s been forced to attend. He’s talking about something inconsequential—as he often does with Clark, who might be the only person alive who doesn’t roll his eyes when Bruce talks too much.

He can’t even remember what he was saying. Something about the cucumber water in the lobby being replaced, or maybe about the carpeting in the office that he keeps meaning to have redone—mundane things, distractions. Then the files in his hands slip free.

Like a bad romantic comedy, he thinks later. Clark reaches down to catch the scattered pages at the same time Bruce does, their foreheads knocking together. Bruce laughs, half-apologetic, and pats Clark’s face without thinking. And then—

Warmth.

Love, maybe. Lips so soft and tentative against his that it feels like being wanted—truly, wholly—for the first time in years. The kiss lasts a heartbeat, two at most. Then it’s gone.

Clark flushes a deep, startled red, averts his eyes, and tucks the rescued files into Bruce’s arms as if nothing’s amiss at all.

Bruce stands there, dazed, watching the elevator doors slide open.

Ah, he thinks, a slow, dizzy realization spreading through him. So that’s how it is.

He denies it to himself for far too long.

It festers in quiet moments—the way Clark’s laughter still echoes in the hall after he’s gone, the way Bruce’s hands tremble when he catches the faintest trace of his cologne on his own cuffs. He tells himself it’s nothing. That Clark’s kiss in the elevator had been a mistake, some misguided surge of emotion that meant less than he’s made it mean. Because it has to mean less, doesn’t it?

How could Clark be like the others? How could this man, so careful and selfless, want him only for the novelty, the thrill, the brief warmth that turns to ash once the boredom sets in? Bruce has been desired before. Desired in ways that never lasted, that always curdled when people found out what he really was underneath the performance. To imagine Clark wanting him that way—just for fun, for distraction—feels unbearable.

The thought burns. He feels ridiculous, childish. Petulant. Some angry, half-grown thing pacing its cage, desperate to lash out. There are moments when he wants to throw something across the room, to hear it shatter, to break whatever spell has made him so raw again. He wants to cry. To scream. But he doesn’t. He never does.

He doesn't kiss Clark again after the elevator. He doesn't touch him at all, for a while. They fall into a rhythm of polite distance, all warmth contained to sidelong glances and passing smiles that bruise more than they comfort. Neither of them mentions it. Bruce can’t bear to, and Clark—Clark either doesn’t remember or refuses to remind him.

Days fold into one another until one evening, when the house is too quiet and even the city seems to hold its breath, Bruce finds himself wandering into his parents’ study.

It’s kept tidy, always has been. Alfred dusts it regularly, though Bruce suspects it’s for Bruce’s sake rather than the room’s. The faint smell of lemon oil and old paper still lingers. He moves through it like a ghost, running his fingertips over the spines of his father’s medical journals, the small figurines lined neatly on the desk, the glass case that holds his mother’s jewelry.

He comes here sometimes to pretend—pretend that the life frozen in this room had once been his, that he’d grown up in light instead of loss. He traces the edge of a pearl earring and remembers a woman’s laugh he can’t quite recall anymore.

He used to want children, once. Before he understood what wanting meant. Before he realized that wanting and deserving were not the same thing. His life isn’t made for children, he knows that now. He could offer them every comfort, every protection—everything but the one thing that matters.

Love.

He isn’t sure he knows how. He isn’t sure he ever did.

That thought settles heavy in his chest as he stands there in the half-dark, surrounded by the memory of people who once loved him without needing to understand him. It occurs to him, painfully, that Clark might be the only person left capable of both loving and understanding him. 

And then… nothing.

No great epiphany, no divine clarity. Just the steady, hollow echo of a truth he doesn’t want to face.

He loves Clark. That much is obvious now, and as useless as every other truth that’s come too late in his life. Clark wants him too, in some way. Maybe not with the same desperation that keeps Bruce awake at night, but there’s something there—a tenderness, a heat, a hunger that blurs the lines between friendship and need. They’re compatible, at least. In conversation. In silence. In bed, when it happens.

And that should be enough, shouldn’t it?

He sets down his mother’s earrings, careful not to let them clink against the glass, and stares at the faint reflection of himself in the case. The thought that follows is small and mean, the kind of compromise he’s always made with himself.

Why love?

What purpose does it serve beyond wounding? If he can have Clark near—his laughter in the morning, his warmth pressed against his side, his steady voice cutting through the noise—then isn’t that the same thing? Love is proximity, isn’t it? Time spent, gestures shared, hands touching in all the quiet spaces where words can’t go.

Couples do that. He and Clark do that.

Couples kiss. They touch. They hold each other close. He and Clark do that too—though part of it, Bruce tells himself, is the performance. The disguise. Brucie Wayne, all easy smiles and careless affection, can hang on anyone he likes. People expect it. They never take it seriously.

That’s the beauty of Brucie: nobody ever looks close enough to see what’s real.

And if the world believes it’s all part of the act, then Bruce can believe it too.

From then on, Bruce indulges.

He tells himself he’s simply accepting what’s been offered, but that’s not true and he knows it. He’s feeding a hunger that has no end. He’ll kiss Clark when Clark leans in, touch him when he’s allowed to, let himself be used however Clark pleases—because this, Bruce figures, is the best he’s ever going to get.

And it isn’t difficult. Not in the slightest. Clark is—God, he’s good to him. Gentle where others would push, patient where anyone else would have walked away. He’s kind in a way Bruce can’t quite comprehend, the kind of goodness that makes him ache with both gratitude and disbelief. Clark shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t want him, shouldn’t waste that gentleness on someone who doesn’t know how to keep it safe.

But he does.

Eventually, Clark moves in, sort of.  A toothbrush appears beside Bruce’s. A sweater draped over the back of the couch. A new mug in the kitchen that Alfred pretends not to notice. If Bruce ignores the apartment Clark still keeps in Metropolis, he can almost pretend they’re married. Not legally, of course, but in all the ways that matter.

Sometimes, when he wakes and hears Clark moving somewhere in the manor—making coffee, humming under his breath—Bruce lets himself believe it’s real. That this is what normal people do. That he’s been allowed, somehow, to have it.

And then Clark starts doing more for him. Little things. That stupidly sweet museum date Bruce can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard he tries. The one where Clark had pretended it wasn’t a date at all, just an afternoon that Bruce had asked for himself. Bruce had gone along with it because it was easier than admitting how much he wanted it.

Now he sometimes sits in his office, work forgotten, staring at the small metal keychain from the gift shop, the tiny T. rex he’d kept for himself. The twin of it hangs from Clark’s car keys, he’s seen it often enough to know.

He’d chosen the rex because it reminded him of Clark. So strong, and capable, and beautiful. Unstoppable, really, in every way that mattered.

Bruce traces a thumb over the toy’s scuffed paint, and for a moment, it almost feels like touching him.

On the morning of his birthday, Bruce wakes with the rare certainty that the day will be good.

He’s managed to dodge every invitation that came his way—charity luncheons, galas, dinners, all those tedious public displays people expect from him this time of year. Even Alfred had looked faintly pleased when Bruce told him there would be no party, no press, no guests. Just the two of them, maybe. More accurately: just Clark.

For once, he wants something simple. Breakfast in the kitchen instead of the dining hall. A quiet drive into the city, maybe lunch somewhere unpretentious. An evening that doesn’t feel like a performance.

He’s halfway through his coffee when Clark says it.

“…so, I’ll be back next week.”

It takes Bruce a moment to realize Clark’s been talking for a while. He catches only the tail end of the sentence, because his heartbeat has drowned out everything else.

“Back?” he repeats, and his voice comes out softer than he means it to.

Clark smiles in that easy way that makes it worse. There’s something almost apologetic in it, though Bruce can’t be sure. He looks hurt, maybe—but why should he? Bruce can’t imagine what, exactly, he’s said wrong.

“I don’t want to be in your way today, sir,” Clark says gently, and the formality lands like a blade. “You deserve the break. And it’s about time I get back and visit Lois and Jimmy.”

Bruce nods automatically, his eyes fixed on the rim of his mug. The sound of Clark’s voice fades under the steady, traitorous pounding of his pulse. He’s used to this—people leaving, people needing to live somewhere beyond his reach. Still, the disappointment comes sharp and bright, as if it’s been waiting for an excuse to remind him he hasn’t outgrown it. Like pressing on a bruise, just to see if it still hurts.

He manages a quiet, practiced sort of smile. “Of course,” he says.

But there’s an edge in his chest that won’t dull. A quick, irrational flare of jealousy that he almost despises himself for. Lois and Jimmy—two names that shouldn’t sting, yet do. Two people Bruce has never managed to surpass in Clark’s heart, no matter how close he’s been allowed to stand.

He pictures them easily: Lois with her sharp laugh and quicker wit, Jimmy with his easy camaraderie and youth. People who know Clark as Clark, who get the sunshine without the shadows. They exist in a world that doesn’t ask Clark to be careful, a world that isn’t constantly at risk of shattering.

And Bruce—Bruce only ever gets the pieces that are left behind. The hours after the saving is done. The exhaustion. The quiet.

He tells himself it’s enough. That it has to be. But when Clark reaches across the counter to set his empty cup in the sink, his fingers brushing Bruce’s wrist for just an instant, Bruce feels the breath catch in his throat.

He wants to ask him to stay. Wants to say, Don’t go, not today. But he doesn’t. He never does.

An hour before Clark is meant to leave for Metropolis, he hands Bruce a carefully wrapped box. The paper is neat, the corners folded with the same precision Clark brings to everything he does.

“I’m sure you have plans today,” Clark says, smiling like he means it. As if he doesn’t know Bruce’s schedule down to the minute. As if he hasn’t memorized every one of Bruce’s habits, from the way he takes his coffee to which mornings he forgets to eat.

Does he really think Bruce has some secret itinerary, some hidden party Clark wasn’t invited to? That Bruce would rather spend his birthday surrounded by people who only know how to love the idea of him?

Bruce takes the box carefully. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” he says, too formal, too cold, and immediately hates how it sounds.

“I wanted to.” Clark’s voice softens, almost hesitant. “Just something small.”

Bruce doesn’t want to open the box. His fingers hover at the edge of the wrapping, and an irrational dread twists low in his stomach. It feels ridiculous—he’s a grown man, not a child—but the thought settles hard in him: that by opening this, by accepting whatever is inside, he’ll be signing something invisible and permanent. Some quiet agreement that the pretending is over.

If he opens it, there will be no more half-measures. No more secret touches passed off as accidents. No more movie nights where they sit too close on the couch, letting the silence stretch until it feels like confession.

It’s just a birthday gift, he tells himself. A token between friends.

He opens it with careful hands, slow and deliberate, peeling the tape as if haste might ruin something sacred. He tries not to tear the paper.

The first thing he sees is yarn—soft, powder-blue, and then gray. The colors blur until his mind catches up to what his eyes are seeing. It’s a dog.

A stuffed dog, hand-made, thick with uneven stitches that only make it more perfect. A small loop of black yarn for a nose, dark button eyes that glint up at him with the same quiet loyalty he remembers from another lifetime.

Ace.

For a moment Bruce forgets how to breathe.

He runs a thumb along the rough weave of the ear, feeling the ridges of the stitches, the time and care in every loop of thread. He can tell Clark made it himself—there’s no store in Gotham or Metropolis that sells anything so obviously, painfully handmade.

His throat tightens. “You… you made this?”

Clark shrugs, sheepish, almost shy. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still like something like that. Alfred told me you used to keep a photo of him in your wallet. I thought—well. You could use a new one.”

Bruce stares at the dog in his hands, then at Clark, who looks so open it hurts to look back. For all his strength, all his impossible power, Clark has never known how to hide.

Bruce swallows hard. “He looks just like him.”

Clark smiles, small and real. “Yeah. I thought you might say that.”

Bruce wants to say something else—something that would explain what this means, what it’s done to him—but the words won’t come. He can only nod, thumb still tracing the edge of the yarn ear.

Clark’s watch buzzes; the car is waiting to take him to the airport. He hesitates for half a breath, then says, “You’ll be okay, right?”

Bruce forces a smile that feels more like a grimace. “Always.”

But the word barely leaves his mouth before he knows it isn’t true. It sounds wrong, brittle, something hollow pretending to be strength. He sees it reflected in Clark’s face immediately—his eyes widen, the kind of expression Bruce’s heart doesn’t know how to handle. Concern. Alarm. Love, maybe.

Clark reaches out, a hand halfway between them, hesitant but sure in its intent to touch.

Bruce blinks once, and the world goes watery. His vision blurs—not enough to disguise what’s happening, not enough to protect his pride—and suddenly his face feels hot, unbearably so. He tries to clear his throat, to recover, to make a sound that might reassert control, but what comes out instead is a sharp, broken noise.

A sob.

Small and high and ugly.

For a heartbeat, he doesn’t even recognize it as his own.

“Bruce,” Clark breathes, and it’s horror and tenderness all tangled together. “Oh my God—”

He tries to speak, to apologize, but the words crumble in his mouth. His hands tremble and his breathing has gone ragged and shallow. He’s distantly aware of the soft toy still in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he manages, though it sounds more like a gasp. “I don’t know—”

“Hey.” Clark’s voice is quiet, strained. He crouches a little, lowering himself until they’re nearly level. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be—”

“Fine,” Bruce mutters, cutting him off, the word reflexive, useless. “I’m fine.”

Clark hesitates, then shakes his head. “You don’t have to be anything.”

Bruce’s hand moves to his mouth, an old, instinctive motion meant to hide—hide the tears, the shaking, the fact that he’s unraveling right here in front of his house like some fragile thing pretending to be a man. But Clark doesn’t let him.

He reaches out, slow enough to give Bruce time to pull away, and cups his jaw. His hand is impossibly gentle. Warm.

“Don’t,” Bruce whispers. It’s barely audible, not even a command—just fear, dressed up like one.

Clark’s thumb moves in a slow arc across his cheek, brushing away the tears that keep finding their way through. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

It’s too much. The softness, the patience, the way Clark’s voice breaks on me. Bruce’s body betrays him again; another sound slips free, rougher this time, from somewhere deep in his chest. He presses a shaking hand over Clark’s wrist, meaning to pull away, but he doesn’t.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Clark says softly.

Bruce exhales, eyes closing, the words heavy and half-broken. “You didn’t.”But that’s a lie, too. Clark Kent made him cry. Clark Kent with his kindness, his patience, his impossible warmth. And suddenly Bruce is angry—furious, even—and he doesn’t know if it’s at himself or at Clark or at the sheer ridiculousness of the fact that he’s sitting here falling apart in front of someone who still calls him sir.

He laughs once, a wet, humorless sound. “You’re—God, you’re the worst.”

Clark blinks, startled. “Bruce? I— I don’t, uh—”

“You kiss me,” Bruce snaps, his voice rising before he can stop it. “You kiss me, and you sleep with me, and then you pretend it didn’t happen. And then you— you’re so nice to me, and I keep letting you, because what else am I supposed to do? I can’t— I can’t force you into—”

He waves a hand, helplessly, as though the rest of the sentence might be hiding somewhere in the air.

“Into liking me, into wanting— whatever this is supposed to be. I know that. I’m not an idiot, I can see it. You’re good, Clark. You’re good, and I keep ruining that by expecting things I shouldn’t.” His voice cracks on the last word; he clears his throat but it doesn’t help. “You make me— you make me forget that I don’t get to have things like that.”

Clark opens his mouth to speak, but Bruce keeps going, faster now, words tumbling out before he can stop them.

“I told myself I could handle it. That if I just didn’t ask, didn’t want too much, I could keep you. That you’d stay. And that was— that was enough. I thought it was.” He shakes his head, runs both hands through his hair. “But then you have to go and give me—” He gestures weakly toward the yarn dog in his hands. “That. You have to be thoughtful and care and make me think that maybe I didn’t imagine it all.”

His voice drops, quieter, unsteady. “You make it so damn hard to stop wanting you.”

For a moment the room is utterly still except for Bruce’s uneven breathing. The anger drains out of him almost as quickly as it came, leaving only the exhaustion beneath it.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he murmurs, staring at the floor. “Forget it. Just—forget it.”

He wipes at his face again, the heel of his hand dragging across his cheek, and for a few seconds there’s only the sound of his own uneven breathing. He’s embarrassed now—humiliated, really—and wishes he could rewind the last five minutes, shove all those words back down where they belong. He’s supposed to be composed. Controlled. He’s supposed to be better than this.

When he finally forces himself to look up, Clark is staring at him.

Not angry. Not confused. Just staring, like the air’s been punched out of him. His eyes are wide, bright with something Bruce doesn’t have a name for. There’s that stunned, disbelieving joy—like someone who’s just realized they’ve won the lottery but hasn’t dared to cash the ticket yet. That look of hope so fierce it borders on fear.

At least, Bruce hopes that’s what it is.

But he’s been wrong before.

“You…” Clark’s voice breaks. He clears his throat, swallows hard. “You—me? That…”

He trails off, shakes his head as if trying to steady himself, and laughs—quiet, incredulous. It’s as if the thing hes wanted for so long has finally become real, and now he doesnt know what to do with it. 

Bruce blinks at him, lost. His heart is still pounding painfully against his ribs, the world still wet and unfocused at the edges. He doesn’t know what Clark’s laughing about, doesn’t know what’s happening, doesn’t know anything except that he’s sitting here with tears on his face and Clark is looking at him like he’s something extraordinary instead of something broken.

The silence stretches.

Bruce sniffs once, awkwardly, and wipes at his nose with the edge of his sleeve. “Stop staring,” he mutters. It comes out smaller than he means it to.

Clark doesn’t stop.

He shakes his head again, still smiling that dazed, disbelieving smile. “You,” he says, almost whispering, as if repeating the word might make it make sense. “You love me.”

Bruce freezes.

He could deny it. He should deny it. That would be the smart thing, the safe thing, the thing he’s always done. But he can’t seem to make his mouth form the lie.

“I…” His voice fails him. He exhales, defeated. “Apparently.”

Clark breathes out a laugh that sounds like relief and heartbreak all at once. He moves closer before Bruce can stop him, close enough that Bruce can see the faint tremor in his hands, the way his eyes are shining.

“You idiot,” Clark says softly, and it’s not cruel. It’s wonder. “You absolute idiot. You think I didn’t want you?”

Bruce blinks. His mind trips over itself, too slow to process the words. “Didn’t you?”

Clark huffs out a shaky laugh and leans forward, forehead nearly brushing Bruce’s. “Every damn day.”

Bruce stares at him, throat tight, unsure if he’s supposed to believe it. “Then why—”

“Because,” Clark interrupts, smiling faintly through the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, “you looked happy. I didn’t want to be the one to ruin it if I was wrong.”

Bruce shakes his head, dazed. “You weren’t wrong.”

“I know that now.”

Neither of them move. The air feels heavy, full of everything they haven’t said for months.

Clark laughs again, quietly, the sound trembling but real. “God, we’re both terrible at this.”

“I don’t understand,” Bruce says at last. His voice sounds rough, almost hoarse. “You… you pretended not to remember.”

Clark blinks, the smile fading from his lips. “Remember what?”

“That night,” Bruce says, every word heavier than the last. “When we got drunk. When we spent the night together and you—” He stops, unable to finish, the words catching somewhere between disbelief and shame. His hands clench against his knees. “You don’t remember that?”

Clark’s brow furrows, confusion softening into something quieter. He hesitates, searching Bruce’s face for context, for meaning. “Bruce,” he says finally, careful, “we’ve had a lot of nights together.”

“That night,” Bruce insists, his tone sharpening. “The one at the manor. Forever ago. We were drinking. You said—” He swallows. “I said I thought- knew, this was a relationship. And you said you knew, too.”

Clark stares at him for a long moment, his expression blank with shock. Then, slowly, realization dawns. “You mean—” He exhales, incredulous. “Bruce, I thought you were joking.”

Bruce blinks. “What?”

“You were laughing,” Clark says, half laughing himself now, but it’s disbelief more than amusement. “You said it like a joke. You said, ‘You know this is a relationship, right?’ and then you laughed, and I said, ‘Yeah, I know,’ because I thought you were teasing me. You always tease me when you’re drunk, I thought—” He breaks off, shaking his head, a hand running through his hair. “You took that seriously?”

Bruce can’t quite breathe. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you never said anything again!” Clark protests, helpless. “You never brought it up! I figured if you meant it, you’d have… I don’t know, looked at me differently. You always look like you’re about to fire me.”

Bruce stares at him, stunned. “You thought I didn’t mean it. I thought you’d forgotten it.”

Clark lets out a breath that sounds halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry—this is—wow, we’re actually terrible. I’m terrible. I’m sorry, Bruce, honestly, I just—”

“No, it’s okay.” Bruce swallows, clutching Ace tight against his chest like it might keep him from shaking. The yarn scratches faintly against his shirt, grounding him in its imperfection. “I know.”

Clark looks stricken, hands hovering uselessly in the air before dropping to his sides. “I love you,” he blurts, and his voice breaks on the words. “In case that’s not clear. I—God, I love you. I adore you. You’re the only thing that matters to me most days.”

He starts pacing, words tumbling out faster than he can control them. “I sometimes feel like—you’re this perfect, beautiful god, and I just can’t compare. You walk into a room and I forget how to breathe, and I thought you couldn’t possibly want me back. But you’re not perfect. You’re—you. You’re impossible and brilliant and infuriating and you drive me insane, and I love you so, so much, and I’m so grateful you haven’t kicked me to the curb—”

Bruce shakes his head, dazed. “No, it’s my fault. I should have said something, I should’ve—”

“C’mon, Bruce, you’re my boss,” Clark interrupts, voice caught somewhere between laughter and tears. “You couldn’t just say something like that! You’d have had to fire me on the spot.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know it’s not!” Clark laughs again anyway, the sound shaky and wet. “I just—God, do you have any idea how hard it was not to tell you? I’ve been in love with you since—since the elevator, I think. Maybe before. Definitely before. I thought if I said anything, I’d lose you.”

Bruce stares at him, at this ridiculous, radiant man standing in his office confessing everything Bruce has spent months trying not to feel. His throat tightens, and when he speaks his voice is soft, tentative, as if he’s afraid the words might vanish between them.

“You wouldn’t have lost me.”

Clark laughs weakly, pressing the heel of his hand to his eyes. “Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.”

He steps closer, still uncertain, the air between them charged and fragile, like the moment before rain breaks. “So… what do we do now?”

Bruce glances down at the stuffed dog in his arms, thumb brushing over the uneven stitches, then back at Clark. His voice comes out steadier than he expects. “I think you should probably kiss me.”

Clark’s smile flickers, half-laughing, half-stunned. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Bruce says simply. “And then you’re going to cancel your trip to Metropolis, and fix my birthday before it’s a lost cause. And later we’ll go visit Lois and Jimmy, and your mom and dad, so they don’t think I’m keeping you all to myself.”

Clark’s laugh this time is full, bright, the sound cutting through the heavy air like sunlight. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. That sounds… wonderful.”

Bruce arches a brow, feigning impatience to hide the warmth creeping up his neck. “Well? Hurry up, then.”

Clark doesn’t make him wait.

He leans in, closing the distance in one smooth, unthinking motion, and Bruce meets him halfway. The kiss lands soft and sure, nothing hesitant in it now—just the weight of every unsaid word, every missed signal, every night spent pretending they didn’t want this. Clark’s hands frame his jaw, thumbs brushing the corners of his mouth; Bruce exhales, feels the tension slip out of him in pieces, one careful breath at a time.

When they finally pull apart, Clark’s forehead rests against his, both of them still catching their breath.

“Happy birthday,” Clark whispers.

Bruce lets out a quiet laugh that trembles somewhere between disbelief and relief. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “It is.”