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I was the one who had it all
I was the master of my fate
I never needed anybody in my life
I learned the truth too late
- Evermore
…
It’s sunny the day they bury Clark.
It's supposed to be raining. There’s suppose to be black umbrellas and people mourning everywhere, speeches that leave everyone wondering who they’re really burying because surely that’s not how they really were?
But it's not.
It’s sunny and there’s only a handful of people, and Bruce hasn’t seen a single tear so far besides the ones on Martha Kent’s cheeks. There’s a prayer over the coffin before it’s lowered to the ground, and, the moment it disappears beneath the first layer of dirt, people start to turn and walk away.
“Bruce.”
He flinches when Diana murmurs his name. It seems wrong to be talking while Clark is slowly being buried by harried cemetery workers, but there’s the small bubble of conversation amongst the mourners and Bruce thinks it’s time to leave.
The next tears he sees is the lone one on Diana’s cheek, but she wipes it away the moment he looks at her.
“We have to go,” she says, and Bruce shakes his head. He doesn’t want to go. Not yet. Something isn’t right, something feels wrong about this, and maybe it’s the fact that someone he thought was indestructible is now gone.
Maybe it’s because Lex Luthor managed to do the one thing Bruce couldn’t do in the end. Maybe Bruce just doesn’t want to admit that Clark Kent is dead.
“Bruce.”
He reaches out wordlessly with his elbow and doesn’t feel a thing when Diana slips her hand beneath it. He thinks maybe he should go back and say something to Martha, but what is there to say? He thinks about Clark the moment before he died, so focused on doing what is right rather than his life.
Bruce doesn’t resist when Diana starts to lead him back to the car. He glances back again, watching Martha as she shakes hands and nods her head like all these people around her really matter in this moment.
“I should go talk to her,” he says, and Diana’s other hand comes up and grips his elbow so tight it hurts.
“No,” she says. “No, you shouldn’t.”
…
Bruce goes and sees her.
They stare at each other through the screen door in silence when she gets to the doorway. She looks older now, tired, and Bruce wonders just how empty this house must feel around her.
He doesn’t know what to say. He wonders what she’s thinking. There’s nothing going through his head. It’s like an empty blank canvas and he wonders if there’s something he's supposed to say or do.
There’s a flash of red and blue behind Martha’s shoulder, but when Bruce looks there’s nothing there. He thinks that the red and blue is long since buried back in Metropolis.
Clark is buried a few hundred meters down the road. It makes Bruce’s skin crawl.
“It’s about time you came,” Martha suddenly says and it pulls Bruce back down to earth. She’s smiling. He doesn’t know how she’s smiling.
“Sorry, I’m late.”
Her smile just reaches her eyes as she opens the screen door to let him in. He feels wrong as he steps over the doorway, shame creeping up his spine and over his shoulders and for a sudden moment he can’t breathe.
They both jump when the screen door bangs shut, the noise loud and echoing in this empty house. Bruce wants to leave, he wants to walk away and not come back. He wants to crawl into his Batcave and never think about Martha Kent again. He wants to shout at the heavens and demand to know why Clark was the one and he wants to thank every god known to mankind that it wasn’t him.
He wants to not feel selfish as he stands in the house of the man he failed and looks at his mother and wonders just what the hell to do next.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Martha says.
…
He can’t stop thinking about it.
He watches the footage over and over, searching for mistakes, searching for signs, searching for something that can tell him that his reality is a lie. That Superman didn’t die. That Clark didn’t leave them.
He comes up short every time.
Alfred watches them with him sometimes. He’s patient. He lets Bruce rant, he lets him rave, and when its time to stop he simply closes down the machines.
He looks away when Bruce can’t breathe.
There must be something though. Anything that proves Clark isn’t gone. Anything that proves that the body Bruce remembers holding and moving wasn’t Superman’s, wasn’t the Man of Steel’s, wasn’t Clark’s. But the more he watches and the more he sees, he knows its the truth.
But still, he watches and watches until the videos are tattooed beneath his eyes and all he dreams about is the bright green of the kryptonite.
…
Sometimes he feels a phantom pain in his chest.
It’s cold and aching, painful and horrendous, and the more he rubs his chest the more it hurts.
Alfred says it’s psychosomatic. Bruce thinks that’s stupid, that he doesn’t get psychosomatic pain, that he’s not that broken.
But he thinks of Clark’s face as Doomsday’s arm swung into him and his chest aches and aches and aches.
…
“I miss him,” Martha tells him.
It’s raining outside. The sound of the water pattering against the corrugated veranda as they sit underneath it jars Bruce every time. He wonders why they don’t sit inside, why they sit on old wooden chairs and let the rain splash onto their pants.
The dog sits at Bruce’s feet. He never liked dogs, never liked animals. But this dog is gentle and warm and Bruce sometimes pats her and thinks that Clark would’ve appreciated it.
“He liked the rain, you know,” Martha continues to say. Her voice is quiet. It’s never loud. Maybe it never was. “He was always splashing in puddles and coming in drenched to the bone. It never fazed him though.”
She laughs. It sounds torn from her lungs.
“One time he came inside with a collection of frogs he’d found in the water troughs. Jonathan tried to keep them all together but they spread through the house quicker than we could blink. It took us days to find them all.”
Her hands are white-knuckled tight around her mug. Bruce wonders if she’s drunk any of it. He hasn’t touched his own. The tea is weak, there’s too much sugar, not enough milk. Martha’s hands had trembled when she’d poured out each cup.
His own hands haven’t been steady for a long time.
“I miss him too,” he says quietly, but he doesn’t think she hears him.
…
Diana doesn’t get it.
“You need to stop,” she demands one afternoon in the middle of the Batcave. The place is a shambles, equipment everywhere and all the monitors are running. It’s like a sauna and Bruce wipes the sweat from his brow. “It’s not healthy, Bruce.”
Bruce doesn’t know what is and what isn’t healthy, but it doesn’t matter.
“I have to make it better,” he tells her earnestly as he looks away from the suit in front of him. It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s updated. His hands are sore from moulding so much kevlar, his eyes burn from sixteen hours of staring at a screen.
Diana steps in front of him and yanks the suit out from under his hands.
“I don’t need a new suit,” she snaps at him as she shakes the kevlar. “I don’t need it.”
But she does, he thinks. She does, because her current one is useless. She could be hurt, she could be wounded, she could be lost and she doesn’t even know it.
If only he’d gotten ahold of Clark’s suit, he thinks as he stares at the plans he’d made only a few days ago. There’s a large plate of kevlar over the chest, the branded red “s” on top.
He shuts down the screen.
Diana looks at him long and hard. He knows she’s seen the screen and Bruce tries to hide his shaking hands and his worried gaze, but something in her face softens. She hands him back the kevlar, and he’s surprised when she steps forward and hugs him.
He doesn’t know what to do.
“Okay,” she murmurs in his ear, and her arms tighten around him briefly before she pulls back. She doesn’t say anything else, just nods her head and starts to walk away. He watches her go, watches her climb the stairs past that godawful suit he keeps and leaves.
His chest hurts.
…
Alfred is too kind to Bruce.
Bruce doesn’t know why. He doesn’t deserve kindness. He’s cruel, he’s horrible, he’s a murderer and a failure.
But Alfred is so damn patient when he stands at the end of Bruce’s bed and demands he has a shower just for once. He’s gentle when he places food in front of Bruce and insists he eats it with a calming hand on the shoulder. He says goodnight and he says good morning and every time it sounds like he means it.
Bruce looks at the rising sun and hates the red he sees. He looks at the sunset and wishes for the day to just go already.
Alfred tries to pull out the Batsuit and get Bruce to take it, but Bruce touches it once and sees flashes of green and Clark’s face and a hole in Clark’s chest and he has to get away from it.
“What can I do, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks him one evening when he finds Bruce alone in his study. Bruce has been watching the fire for hours. It’s almost out, the last flame flickering pathetically over the embers.
Alfred stokes it and it roars back to life.
“Nothing,” Bruce tells him, but he’s not sure he means it.
…
“Sometimes it’s too much,” Martha murmurs over the dinner table one night.
Bruce looks up from his full plate to see her staring down at her own. The food’s been ready for an hour, served for forty minutes.
Neither have eaten a bite.
“The house?” he asks, and she looks up at smiles at him. It doesn’t reach her eyes. It never does.
“The silence.”
Bruce nods, but he doesn’t think he knows. He lives in silence. His job is silence. Batman relies on silence so much that it’s more of a comfort than isolating. But Martha doesn’t, he knows. He sees the way she jumps when the dog yawns, when the wind rattles the windows, when a tree creaks outside. She’s adapted to silence so fast, but she’s not a creature of it.
The silence lingers before he gathers the dishes and piles them on the bench. He doesn’t know what to do with the food, but Martha appears at his side and pulls cling-film from the cupboard.
“Do you see him?” she asks later when the kitchen is clean. Bruce stands awkwardly in it, feeling too big for such a space, feeling out of place in this home. It’s not his home. It's Clark’s, was Clark’s.
“No,” he admits. He doesn’t. “I don’t think I’m welcome there.”
Martha shakes her head and places her hand on his arm. It’s cold, and he wonders if that’s normal.
“You’re always welcome,” she tells him sternly. “Always.”
“We weren’t friends.”
“No,” she agrees, and Bruce feels his chest ache. “You weren’t. But that doesn’t make you unwelcome.”
…
Bruce remembers Lois’s cries.
They haunt him sometimes. Sometimes he sits in a room and hears the sound of her crying in the corridor and he has to remind himself it’s not real.
He finds her months later, when the days are less sunny and the grass on Clark’s grave is probably starting to grow over. He finds her when he can’t make excuses not to anymore and when she sees him on the street outside the Daily Planet, he genuinely wonders if she’s going to run.
But she doesn’t. She waits for him to approach and when he’s standing right in front of her, she reaches out to grip his arm tightly as she leans in.
“Why are you here?” she hisses in his ear, and her fingernails are sharp where they cut into Bruce’s skin. “Why do you care?”
He doesn’t know what to say for a moment, and when he pushes back from her it’s to see it’s not Lois in front of him, but Clark. Clark with a gaping hole in his chest and tears in his eyes as he reaches for Bruce.
“Why do you care?” Clark demands as he steps towards Bruce, and Bruce can’t speak, can’t say anything but stare in horror as Clark’s face turn ashen and his eyes start to dull. “Why do you care?”
Bruce tries to reply, tries to say something, but nothing comes out as Clark starts to shrivel in front of him, the suit constricting around him until the skin starts to fall off his face and Bruce watches in horror as Clark slowly decays into a skeleton.
“Why now?” the skeleton yells at him, and Bruce stumbles as he tries to back away. “Why now?”
He wakes with a start, the sheets pooled around his waist and sweat dripping off him. He can’t breathe, his head is spinning, and he grips his hair with tight fists and yanks and yanks.
…
Sometimes Bruce’s fingers itch and burn with the memory of Clark beneath them.
Sometimes he stops and stares at them for long enough that they feel disconnected from his body. He squeezes them tight enough to hurt then, waiting for them too hurt too much, waiting for him to finally have the pain that he deserves for the things he’s done.
It’s never painful enough.
…
“He respected you,” Martha says when they stand over Clark’s grave.
She’s brought sweet peas with her, the smell pungent enough to make Bruce’s stomach curl. Its the first time he’s been here since the funeral. Nothing has changed, it’s still a headstone over a small bit of dirt. There’s some grass poking out, freshly grown, but besides the flowers, there is nothing there.
“No, he didn’t.”
The look that Martha gives him is sharp and it nearly has Bruce wanting to crawl in alongside Clark just to escape it.
“Yes,” she tells him, her voice holding no room for argument. “He did, Bruce. I can tell you now that he did.” She shakes her head and looks out over the nearby paddocks. The horses in them look back. “Despite your differences, he respected and admired you.”
Bruce can’t handle that. He sees Clark’s face in his mind, turning to a skeleton, asking him why now, and he wants nothing more than to apologise.
“I tried to kill him,” he says quietly, ripping the words from his chest and his voice catches at the end.
She flinches, and a part of Bruce is satisfied at that.
…
The first time he puts on the Batsuit again, he has a panic attack.
He sits for hours on top of some building in Gotham with his head between his knees as he tries to breathe, as he waits for his eyes to unblur and his head to stop spinning and the world to just stop for one goddamn moment. His chest aches and aches and he wants nothing more than for all of it to end.
Diana finds him. Bruce hears the sound of her boots hitting the rooftop with a dull thud. She doesn’t say a word though, just sits beside Bruce and waits for him to raise his head.
When Bruce looks up, it’s to see her looking back in her full Wonder Woman regalia. It’s a sight to see.
“Tough day, huh?” she asks.
Bruce drops his head back between his knees.
…
He finally sees Lois, for real this time.
They’re at the memorial site in Metropolis. Bruce hadn’t meant to come here. He’s in the city on business, business he’s finally addressing after months of avoiding it, but the call to finally see the memorial is too much.
“It looks nothing like him.”
Her voice is strong, something that Bruce doesn’t expect. He doesn’t turn to look at her though, his eyes fixed on the large statue of what is supposed to be Clark. The nose is too big, the eyes are too far apart.
It doesn’t make Bruce ache like it should.
“No, it doesn’t,” he agrees as Lois stands beside him. He glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She looks tired, sad. It makes sense. She has lost the love of her life. He notices the diamond on her finger and has to look away.
“I’ve spoken to Martha,” Lois continues when it’s clear Bruce won’t speak. “And I’ve seen the news. You’re no longer working your second job.”
It’s subtle, and Bruce nearly smiles. “Performance issues,” he tells her honestly, and he’s surprised when she lets out a startled laugh.
She glances at him, and Bruce sees how haunted she looks. There’s recognition there though, and he wonders if he looks the same.
“You know, he wouldn’t want us to just stop,” she says quietly, smiling grimly. “He would want us to keep going.”
She reaches out and touches his elbow and Bruce tries not to flinch away as he remembers sharps claws biting into him. He pulls his arm out of her grip though and avoids her gaze by looking back at the statue. It really doesn’t look like him.
“You can’t just stop, Bruce.”
He grits his teeth. She’s right. She’s so damn right. Clark would hate to see him now, hate to see how badly he’s fallen. He pictures Diana in his head, hovering over the files of the other metahumans, asking him to keep going, and he wonders if it’s time.
Lois sighs, and when Bruce turns to her it’s to see her smiling sadly as she steps in closer. His back goes rigid, his shoulders tighten, but he stands strong as she leans in.
“I loved him too,” she murmurs.
Bruce’s mouth drops open and he shakes his head. “I didn’t love him,” he says, his voice slightly strangled. Lois raises her eyebrows at him though and lets out a sad laugh.
“Yes,” she tells him, “you did.”
…
Martha’s house reminds him too much of Clark.
He doesn’t know why he still visits her. Maybe it’s the familiarity now. Maybe it’s because her name is Martha and he thinks of his own mother when he’s with her. Maybe it’s because, now that he’s gone, Bruce will do anything to keep reminding himself that Clark existed.
Maybe he’s lonely.
“He always loved collecting things when he was growing up,” Martha is saying. They’re in Clark’s old room today. She'd decided that today was the day she was going to start tidying it up. Not completely, just enough so that it’s clean.
They’ve been sitting on the floor for two hours, the room still untouched.
Martha is searching through a small box they found. It’s full of stuff. Bruce never really thought that people did keep boxes full of mementoes, that it was always something glorified on television, but as Martha pulls out pictures and knick-knacks, it’s obvious that he was wrong.
He holds a picture of Clark in his hand. He’s in his Superman suit and sitting on the veranda steps outside, Martha’s dog lying with her head in his lap. It’s an odd picture, one that doesn’t make sense to anyone who thinks of Superman, but it’s not really him. Clark Kent may have sometimes been Superman, but Superman was always Clark Kent.
“I use to think he’d become a vet with how attached he was to animals,” Martha continues to say, and Bruce tries to listen but he can’t quite look away from the picture. “I’m proud of him. He needed to be Superman, it’s who he was, but sometimes…”
She falls silent, and Bruce looks up to see her looking at a family photo. Clark is so young in it, barely taller than Martha’s waist. It’s hard to believe that Clark was once so small.
Martha shakes her head and drops the photo back into the box. There are tears in her eyes and Bruce doesn’t know what to do.
“Sometimes I wish he had just become a damn vet.”
…
He doesn’t visit Clark by himself very often.
He still doesn’t feel welcome, still feels like a fake every time he stands at the end of the grave and looks at the fresh headstone. He reads Clark’s name, Clark Joseph Kent, over and over until it’s carved into his memory. He feels like he shouldn’t, but he does anyway.
It’s warm today. He has his jacket over his arm as the sun peeks out from behind the clouds. He’s holding a bunch of roses that Alfred picked for him. There’s a fresh vase filled with rainwater from yesterday just waiting.
He feels wrong.
“I never know what to say,” he says when he decides that it’s been too long. The wind picks up a little, brushing against his bare arms.
He looks away from the headstone for just a moment. The paddocks are full of freshly turned hay bales. Autumn has set in. He’s standing half sunken in a thin layer of mud and he knows Alfred won’t be impressed at his ruined expensive shoes.
“I’m tired,” he suddenly admits to no one in particular. Maybe to Clark. “I’m tired of fighting.”
There’s no reply, of course not. If there was he’d be concerned. But he turns his gaze back to the unresponsive headstone and he thinks that if no one can hear him out here then maybe that’s a good thing.
“I’ve fought and I’ve fought and I’ve fought,” he confesses in a rush, and it’s like he can’t hold back the words now that he’s saying them aloud, “and nothing has ever changed. I’ve been Batman for over twenty years and I’m starting to think that maybe the world just doesn’t want to change, that maybe I can’t save it.”
He shifts where he stands and the mud squelches. It’s an odd sound, one that’s loud in the still air, and Bruce finds it unbearable to think that Clark is somewhere in front of him but far far down.
“You could’ve,” Bruce murmurs, and it’s true. “You could’ve changed everything.”
He feels sick all of a sudden, his chest aches and his hands tremble as the realisation that Clark is gone and dead and he’s not coming back sets in. His fingers tighten around the bouquet of flowers until he hears the sound of their stems crunching.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For not listening. For causing this mess. If I’d just listened instead of…”
He trails off. There’s no point, he thinks. It’s not like Clark can hear him now.
He drops the bouquet in the vase of rainwater before he walks away.
…
He puts on the suit again.
It’s time, he thinks. It’s time to put the suit back on. He thinks of Clark and wonders if this is what he would’ve wanted.
Alfred helps him this time. They’re methodical in checking his weapons to ensure they work, meticulous in testing his protective layers, more careful than they’ve ever been. Yet, Bruce watches Alfred clench his teeth as he tugs on Bruce’s gloves.
“Alfred,” he calls gently, turning his hand over to grip Alfred’s wrist. “It’ll be okay.”
“Can you guarantee that?” Alfred snaps back immediately, and Bruce is honestly surprised. Alfred doesn’t snap. He doesn’t worry. He snarks and helps and this is completely unbalanced.
He stares at Alfred for a long moment, his mouth slightly open, no words on his tongue. Alfred glares back until he steps away from Bruce.
“No one can ever guarantee their safety, Master Bruce,” he says, calmly this time. “Don’t patronise me by trying to.”
Bruce still doesn’t know what to say as Alfred turns away, and it’s with shaky steps that he makes his way to the Batmobile.
…
“I read the papers,” Martha says as they stand in one of her paddocks. “You’re back to being him again.”
Bruce is covered in hay, the straw has slipped under his clothes and itches his back. Martha doesn’t move beside him though, and Bruce doesn’t want to break the fragile air.
“I couldn’t stay away forever,” he admits to her. “Gotham needs Batman too much.”
Martha hums and leans against him, her side pressed against his arm. It’s a casual touch, it shouldn’t make Bruce rigid and awkward but it does. He stands frozen, his breath halted, and he watches the cows in front of them and waits for Martha to speak.
“I know,” she eventually agrees. “But you need Bruce Wayne more.” She tilts her head to look up at him. “Are you okay?”
Bruce wants to scoff, wants to laugh, tell her he’s not been okay for a long time. But he doesn’t. She looks tired, frail now. He can’t give her his problems to put on top of her own.
“Yes.”
She laughs as she pushes away from him. “You can’t bullshit me, kid,” she says as she claps a firm hand on his shoulder. She shakes her head and starts to walk away, her gumboots sinking into the shallow patches of mud as she goes.
Bruce follows after her, trailing behind until she waits for him at the gate. It’s peaceful out here. Quiet. Bruce thinks it’s a nice change from Gotham. He wonders if he should never go back.
They turn towards the house together but don’t move forward, and when Bruce looks at Martha it’s to see her eyes are wet with tears. It’s not uncommon, he thinks he’s getting used to it now, so he waits again.
He thinks he’s getting good at waiting now.
“They’ll repossess my home soon,” she murmurs when the wind has chilled them to the bone. “I can’t afford to pay the mortgage anymore.”
“Martha-” Bruce starts to say, the offer on the edge of his tongue, but she turns a vicious glare towards him.
“Don’t you dare, Bruce Wayne,” she says with enough authority that Bruce backs down. Her gaze softens when he does, and she shakes her head. “You paid for Clark’s funeral, and I can never repay you for that.”
“I didn't-”
“Don’t think I’m stupid, Bruce,” she scolds him, and he closes his mouth. She sighs before she turns to look back at the house. “Its time to go,” she admits. “Everywhere I look, there’s Jonathan or Clark.”
Bruce wonders if that’s why she should stay in the house, but then he thinks of the Wayne Manor. It’s decrepit now, broken down with no repair work in its future. Bruce doesn’t think he can bring himself to ever fix it. There are too many ghosts in that manor, too many people in the walls.
He’s pulled from his thoughts when Martha clears her throat and holds out her hand. Bruce looks down to see a familiar pair of glasses lying in her palm.
“Take them,” she says quietly. Bruce looks at her with wide eyes and she smiles. “Something to remember him by.”
He doesn’t reach out for them, can’t reach out for them, but she takes his hand gently and pushes the glasses into it. She closes his fingers over the delicate frames and pats his knuckles.
“Something to remember him by,” she repeats, and Bruce tries to breathe.
…
He decides to visit Clark before he leaves for Iceland.
He doesn’t know what to say at first. The cemetery is empty, the wind is cold, Bruce shivers just the once as a gust gets in between his clothes and sends a chill down his spine. His boots stand in the thick mud, sinking him down just a little lower the longer he stands still.
“Six months,” Bruce finally says, but his voice doesn’t really sound his own. He looks away from the headstone and out over the paddocks. They’re empty now. There used to be horses but, now that winter has set in, Bruce isn’t surprised to see they’re gone.
There’s no response, of course not. Bruce doesn’t know why he was waiting for one.
“I’m putting together a team,” he starts up again, and he pushes himself to continue. “A team of metahumans, like you.” He thinks of the creature that attacked him last night, the three squares branded on the concrete wall, the hints all through Luthor’s notes, the kidnapped S.T.A.R lab employees. “Something is coming and I have to stop it.”
The grave is quiet. Bruce’s chest aches.
“I wish you were here,” he confesses quietly, his words disappearing as the wind roars.
…
Iceland is a complete failure.
Bruce never expected Arthur Curry to come with him. Diana had reminded him that all the metahumans had spent time trying to hide who and what they are. They’re not going to come out because of some pretty speech about working together and saving a world that has rejected them for so long.
But Bruce still needed to try, and when he stands on the shoreline and watches Arthur disappear out into the harbour, he thinks that maybe Arthur will come back.
He’s not sure, but he has to hold onto that hope.
After pushing through the crowd and making his way back to the plane, Bruce pulls out the next file on the next metahuman. Barry Allen. Central City, back home. Bruce wonders if there’s a better chance for this one.
He looks up as the plane takes off, his eyes catching the photo just across from him. It’s red, blue, and smiling, a photo he’d cut from an old issue of the Daily Planet. It’s too small for the frame, but Bruce doesn’t care as he leans forward and memorises the lines of Clark’s face again.
“We’ll be home in six hours, sir.”
Alfred’s voice jars him out of his thoughts, and Bruce looks away from the photo and tries to focus on the files in front of him, absentmindedly rubbing his chest as he does so.
…
Sometimes, he puts on the glasses.
There’s no magnification to them, just simple glass. He puts them on when he’s been staring at the monitors for too long, when he’s lost with what to do next, when he comes home from his patrols and just feels lonely.
It makes him feel closer to Clark. He wonders if that was Martha’s intention.
…
“He’s coming,” Diana says to him when he gets back.
She’s looking at the monitors in front of her, the collection of the metahumans that Bruce has managed to find. He’s worked tirelessly for days, pushing forward with the thought that this needs to happen. That it’s time to create a team.
Steppenwolf is coming.
Three faces stare back at him from the monitors. Arthur Curry, Barry Allen, and Victor Stone. There’s more, there’s so many more, but they’re the only ones Bruce has managed to physically find.
There’s another monitor to the side with Clark on it. His glasses sit in front. It only feels right.
“You said you met Curry?”
Bruce nearly laughs, the meeting clear in his head. “He said he won’t help,” he tells her, and Diana sighs.
“Then how’re we going to do this?” Diana asks, and Bruce looks at her and shrugs. The plan isn’t concrete. The meeting with Curry already went south, there’s still Allen to go. Perhaps Stone if Diana is willing to speak to him.
“That’s where you come in,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes.
…
When he tells Martha, she smiles at him brightly and it reaches her eyes.
“Good,” she says as she hands him a glass of iced tea. It’s raining outside again and the heaters are on in the lounge of her small Metropolis apartment. He takes it without complaint. “He’d be proud of you.”
“I’m not doing it for him,” Bruce lies, and Martha laughs as she settles into the couch across from him.
…
Rescuing the S.T.A.R lab employees goes as well as Bruce thinks it would.
But it lures out Arthur Curry, it gives Barry Allen the courage to step forward, it pushes Victor Stone to be part of the team. Diana grips Bruce’s shoulder hard enough to bruise when Victor brings out the mother box, and Bruce thinks that it gives himself and Diana a reason to be here.
The decision to resurrect Superman, on the other hand, nearly splits them.
Bruce can see why they’re against it. A small part of him is against it too. But they need him, they need Superman. The fight proved that this team isn’t enough without him. They’re too frail, too human, they need Kal-El.
The argument goes as well as Bruce thinks it ever could have. He brings up Steve Trevor and expects Diana’s ire. He doesn’t anticipate Victor to be in favour of bringing back Clark after what the Mother Box did to him. Arthur is… as obscure as ever, and Barry throws more pop culture references that cover his nervousness and unease.
All in all, they agree.
Diana stops him before he leaves though, her hand on his elbow as she pulls him to face her. Bruce doesn’t want to talk to her, doesn’t want her to look at him and see all the things he’s not saying.
His chest aches.
“Tell me you’re doing this because of Steppenwolf,” she demands, her eyes wild like fire. Bruce has always admired that about her. “Tell me you’re not doing this because you…”
“Because I what?” he asks, his voice calm and quiet and so nearly broken.
She shakes her head. “Because you love him.”
Bruce feels the words like a douse of cold water over his head, chilling him to the bone. He wants to yell at her, fight her, tell her she’s wrong to think he could be so selfish. He wants to tell her that he’s not who he is, that he is only thinking about the reasons the world needs Superman.
Not why he needs Clark Kent.
“I don’t love him,” he says instead, avoiding her eyes and pulling his arm from her grip. The words are raw and a lie. He tries to believe it.
“You don’t have to love him the way Lois Lane did for it to mean something.”
He flinches. “And you would know all about love, wouldn’t you?” he snaps at her, clear meaning behind his words, and she pulls back from him with a hard look.
She doesn’t say a word, she doesn’t have to. Her silence says enough.
…
He has to form a contingency plan for Clark.
He doesn’t want to. He wants to live in the fantasy that this will go completely according to plan, that raising Clark from the dead will go over fine. He wants to think that the team’s worries are unfound and that Clark would never turn against them, never hurt them.
But he doesn’t know who they are, and that’s a fact.
So he finds Lois, and it takes longer than he thought it would when he realises that he knows next to nothing about her. Alfred does most of the detective work and, eventually, they find her the same night that Barry and Victor are digging up Clark.
She’s in her new apartment, which surprises Bruce that she left the apartment she shared with Clark. He wonders if it’s the same thoughts as Martha with the farmhouse, with Bruce and the Wayne Manor, and he decides not to think about it too much.
He goes as Bruce to her home, and when she opens the door she lets out a startled laugh.
“Of all the people I expected on the other side,” she says as she ushers him in, “Bruce Wayne was not one of them.”
“I need your help,” Bruce replies, cutting straight to the chase. He’s not here for a personal call, he’s not here to be friends, and he’s definitely not here to focus on the diamond ring on her finger. “We’re bringing Clark back.”
He doesn’t expect her to collapse. It even takes him a moment to process before he assists her to the couch. He doesn’t wait for her to be settled though before he launches into his explanation. There’s no time for civilities. Already, he can feel his pocket vibrating with messages from Alfred. The boys must’ve found Clark.
By the time he’s finished though, Lois is crying. Despite his practice with Martha, Bruce still doesn’t know what to do.
The twinkle of the diamond ring catches his eye and he sets his jaw.
“Why?” Lois asks. Her first question. Bruce looks at her and sees genuine curiosity, not hostility that Diana had shown.
He says the same thing he said to Alfred. “ He was more human than I am,” he tells her, and he sees the way she nods her head and tries not to feel stung. “He lived in this world. Fell in love, got a job, despite all that power.” He pauses, closes his eyes, breathes. “The world needs Superman.” He opens them. Looks at her. “And the team needs Clark.”
She shakes her head, and her smile is sad as she looks at him. “You need Clark,” she says, and Bruce bites his tongue and looks away.
…
The moment he sees Clark, Bruce knows what they’re doing is wrong.
It’s their only option, he repeats to himself. But Clark looks peaceful, looks like he’s simply sleeping, and Bruce is going to destroy that. He thinks about what Alfred said, “what about Clark? What if he’s at peace” and Bruce wants to crawl back to his Batcave and never leave it again.
He’s a monster. He knows that. He knows that, but still he nods his head when Barry offers to charge the lightning. He nods his head even though he can see the anger on Diana’s face, hears the hesitance in Arthur’s voice, feels the doubt running through his veins.
Each step that Barry takes away from them is another breath that Bruce loses until he’s clutching at his chest. It’s stabbing, it’s so painful he feels his eyes are watering and he watches as the photo of Jonathan sinks beneath the water with Clark’s body.
He feels like he’s the one drowning, and he takes a few steps back and ignores Diana’s look as he just tries to breathe.
But before he can, Victor starts to count down, his voice loud and echoing in the small chamber.
Five.
Bruce shakes his head. This is a mistake. This is a complete mistake.
Four.
He thinks of Martha, what she’ll do, what she’ll say. She’s been through enough. He’s destroying her son.
Three.
What if Arthur is right? Dying takes something away from you. What if he brings Clark back just to have to kill him again?
Two.
He can’t breathe, nothing is working and his chest is screaming at him and his vision is tunnelled and nothing matters because he can’t fucking breathe.
One.
There’s a crack, a loud crack, and Bruce sees nothing but a flash of red and the static of lightning crackles around him. The others yell, there’s the whack of lightning hitting the box, there’s silence for a long moment.
And then Clark opens his eyes.
…
“I’m sorry.”
Diana sighs beside him. They’re still nursing their whiskeys together, Bruce’s Batsuit discarded with his bruises on full display, each one hurting more than the other. Victor is trying to track down the Mother Boxes, Bruce dreads to think what Arthur and Barry are doing, and if his instincts are right then he has a firm belief that Clark is probably back at the farmhouse.
A disaster, really.
“You already said that,” Diana says, and Bruce tilts his head to look at her. She’s beautiful in her suit, a red cape wrapped around her shoulders, but she’s sad. So sad.
“It wasn’t enough,” he murmurs, looking away. He swirls what's left of his whiskey. “I used Steve Trevor against you. I should never have…” he trails off and swears under his breath. “It was a low blow.”
“It was,” Diana muses. “But I used Clark against you. I call it fair.”
Bruce downs his whiskey before standing up to glare at her. “It’s not the same,” he snaps, his hand tight around his glass. “I’m not-”
Diana laughs, cutting him off. “Maybe to begin with you weren’t,” she says, and her eyes are burning with conviction again. “But you are now. Why can you not admit it?”
“How can you fall in love with someone that’s dead?” he demands, slamming his glass down on its tray. He’s lucky it doesn’t shatter, and he grits his teeth and glares at the glass.
He hears her rustling behind him before he feels her at his back. Everything in him is on edge, his head throbs, his chest just hurts, nothing makes sense and he wants to just smash all the glassware against the wall until the shards are powder and the carpet soaks up the whiskey in dark stains.
She drops her hand on his shoulder. “You tell me,” she murmurs in his ear.
…
Of all the people to approach him, Bruce is surprised it’s Arthur.
He’s neck-deep in technology, his hands wrapped around the small wires that connect all their in-ear communicators. They’re going into a danger zone, and Bruce has no intentions of letting them in all unprepared.
It makes him jump though when Arthur enters the side bay, his voice booming out already, and Bruce zaps his bare finger on an exposed wire.
“Maybe you shouldn’t come.”
Bruce swears as he sticks his finger in his mouth. He turns to look at Arthur, unsurprised to see him looking everywhere but at Bruce. He’s brought his trident with him, a pitchfork really, and he seems more focused on juggling it between his hands.
“And why’s that?” Bruce asks around his finger. Arthur’s eyes snap to him briefly before he grips the trident tightly and clenches his jaw.
“No reason,” he lies. Bruce shakes his head and pulls his finger away to examine the small red mark. It’s a small star. It’s nothing.
The communicators need to be finished, but Bruce doesn’t see Arthur leaving any time soon. He leans against the bench and watches Arthur for a long moment. He admires him, just as he does the others. The fact he’s here despite all doubts, despite all the things the human world has done to the ocean, despite having every reason to walk away and leave humanity to just be destroyed, its more than enough for Bruce to know that he’s a good person.
“Bullshit, Curry,” he says. Arthur flinches at his words but still won’t look. “You’ve got a reason. Let me hear it.”
Arthur looks at him properly. His eyes are a cloudy blue now. Bruce wonders if the gold eyes are for a reason. He doesn’t know him well enough to ask.
“It’s obvious,” Arthur mutters, his eyes hard. “You’re human, Bruce Wayne. You’re too human.”
It should be offensive, but Bruce takes it for what he means. There’s obviously concern there, and Alfred would be happy to know there are other people who worry for him now.
“That doesn’t matter,” Bruce tells him as he crosses his arms. “The world is in danger and I have the ability to do something, so I will do it.”
Arthur glares. He stops playing with his trident and leans it against the desk before storming forward. Bruce can’t stop him before he yanks up part of his undershirt, showing the still fresh bruises littered across his torso from the previous fight.
“And this?” Arthur demands. He pokes one of the bruises, and Bruce hisses as he pushes Arthur away. “What about this, Wayne? You’re too breakable. This could kill you.”
“It could kill us all,” Bruce snarls back, but Arthur smiles a grim smile and shakes his head.
“We’re metahumans,” he points out, and Bruce has to look away. “We’ve got better chances than you. You’ll be parademon mince-meat within moments.”
“I have a plan for that,” Bruce snaps, and Arthur laughs. It’s bitter and cruel.
“Of course you do,” he drawls, shaking his head. His eyes are unforgiving, the foggy blue somehow piercing. Bruce swallows thickly but glowers straight back. “You have a plan for everything, don’t you, Wayne.”
His voice is thick with derision. Bruce grits his teeth so hard that it hurts, it feels like his jaw might break. He doesn’t know what’s worse, feeling incompetent or feeling like a liability.
“I can’t not do this,” he mutters.
Arthur shakes his head, but Bruce sees his eyes flicker away to look around the room. He knows that Arthur is looking at the Batsuits, the communicators, the weapons that line the walls. His entire career as Batman is on show, pried open for Arthur to consider, and he sees the moment that Arthur’s eyes fall on that damn picture he has and the stupid pair of glasses.
He reaches past Bruce and picks them up, and Bruce feels his stomach roll unpleasantly as Arthur turns the glasses in his hands before he sighs. Something has changed, there’s sympathy there now, and Bruce wants to punch the look off Arthur’s damn face.
“No,” Arthur says, and there’s a small hint of defeat to his tone. “No. I guess you can’t.”
…
Bruce doesn’t remember much of the battle before the Mother Boxes are separated.
He feels it. His whole body is screaming in agony as he leaves Victor to pull them apart. Everything is aching and cracking as he hits the ground and fights parademon after parademon. Nothing feels like it should, he’s almost certain his shoulder is dislocated again. It’s agonising but bearable.
Bearable, compared to after the blast.
He hits the ground at the same time as Diana does, and he hears her groan of protest. It’s nothing compared to what he wants to yell, wants to scream as the blast rattles through his already bruised body. Something is bleeding, something is broken, it’s all too much and the pain stops his cry before it even leaves his mouth.
All of it, it’s too much, it’s too damn much. He wants to just lie down forever, he wants to never get up, he wants to curl into a ball and just stay there. He wants everything to just stop as he feels agony rip up his throat and spill out his mouth in a silent sob.
But then he thinks of Clark, Clark who was right in front of the blast as it happened. He forces himself to his knees as he looks up, looks for a damn sign of life from above.
“Clark,” escapes him before he can hold it in, and he sees Diana turn to look at him but he ignores her as he wills for something, anything, because dammit he does, he does love this man.
Somehow, some-bloody-how he’s fallen in love with Clark when he wasn’t looking and the sheer thought that Clark might be dead and gone for the second damn time makes Bruce want to scream, want to fall back to the ground and yell and bargain and he hopes that Clark is okay, because he needs Clark to be okay.
But then there’s laughter. Laughter from above them. It’s loud and pained and joyful, and Diana lets out her own startled noise but Bruce doesn’t care because he can hear it.
Clark’s laugh.
It makes it worth it. It makes the sheer anguish worth it as he falls forward onto his hands and knees and just tries to breathe.
…
If Bruce wasn’t already battered and bruised and almost beyond repair, he thinks Alfred would’ve finished him off.
The others are gone now. Bruce isn’t surprised. They’re a motley group at best, and they all have places to be. Diana had lingered with him momentarily before he’d boarded the plane that Alfred had brought to pick them up, but he’d boarded alone. Arthur had gone back to the sea, a Mother Box in hand. Barry had seemed uncertain until he’d disappeared in a crack of lightning. Victor had jettisoned into the air, the second box on his hip. Diana had simply smiled at Bruce before she also left with the third box.
And Clark. Bruce watched Clark raise a hand in farewell before he too took to the air, and Bruce thinks of a diamond ring before he closes his eyes and slumps on the ramp.
“You’re a mess, Master Bruce,” Alfred tells him once he’s manhandled Bruce to the emergency cot. The armour lies around them in pieces. Bruce thinks it’s poetic. “One day, you’ll need to stop all this violent business.”
“One day,” Bruce agrees. He winces as Alfred lifts his arm before briskly shoving it back into place. It hurts, God, does it hurt, but it’s better than watching the world burn down around them.
“You look like a damn boysenberry,” Alfred mutters as he daps at Bruce’s open wounds. “But boysenberries are meant to look that way.”
Bruce catches sight of himself in the reflective panel across from him. Alfred is right. He’s more black and purple than anything else. Everything twinges and aches. It will for a while.
“We did it, Alfred,” he says, and he feels slightly giddy for a moment. “We saved the world.”
Alfred hums. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just continues to wrap and bind and poke and prod until Bruce wonders who bruised him more, Alfred or the parademons. But when he’s packing away the first aid kit and handing Bruce a shirt, Bruce sees how sad Alfred looks. He picks up something and turns to Bruce, holding out his hand.
“And what did you lose in the process, Master Bruce?” he asks, and Bruce looks down at his extended arm and sees a familiar pair of glasses sitting in his palm.
…
He calls Martha.
He feels wrong in doing so. His hand trembles on the phone before he finally dials the number. He shouldn’t be doing this. Clark most likely won’t approve. He honestly doesn’t think she’ll answer when he raises the phone to ear.
He wonders if she even needs him anymore.
But on the third ring, she answers. “You stupid boy,” she scolds, and for a moment Bruce thinks the bank has already got a hold of her. That would be ridiculously fast though since he just got off the phone with them, and realistically he has no illusions that Martha is more likely to turn up and beat him to death over buying back her house rather than a scolding over the phone.
“Whatever I did, I’m so-” he starts to say but falls silent when he hears her sob on the other end.
“No,” she cries, and Bruce doesn’t know what to do when she’s crying in front of him let alone over the phone. “No, thank you, Bruce. I can’t… you brought him back and there is no way I can ever repay you.”
Oh. It’s Clark, he realises. She’s crying over Clark. It makes sense. His eyes catch the glasses sitting on the coffee table in front of him and he has to take in a deep breath as feelings he doesn’t want swell up in his chest, his pained chest.
“It was for the-” he starts again when he’s gathered himself together, but Martha cuts him off.
“For the sake of the world, I know,” she interrupts. She sounds almost happy. “Even so, thank you.”
The praise makes him uncomfortable. He shifts awkwardly in his chair and drops the phone just slightly from his ear as he tries to think. He really didn’t do it for her. He didn’t even really do it for the world.
The memory of Diana’s harsh eyes and her hand gripped on his arm makes him flinch, and he raises the phone back to his ear.
“Is he… is he okay?” he awkwardly asks, the words feeling too big and too obvious. He closes his eyes and holds his breath as he hears Martha laugh on the other end. It must be good then.
“He’s good, Bruce,” she says. “He’s great. He’s just the same. He’s spending a lot of time with Lois…”
Bruce tunes her out, as horrible as that is to do. He just can’t listen to a story about Clark and Lois and not feel sick to his stomach. He wonders if it’s jealousy. Maybe it’s envy. In any case, it’s petty and he knows that but dammit he will indulge himself just this once.
“That’s great,” he eventually says when Martha pauses for a moment. “That’s great and I’d love to hear more, but Alfred is giving me one of his looks so I must go.”
It’s a blatant lie, her lack of immediate response shows she knows that.
“Bruce,” she says softly, so damn softly, and Bruce grits his teeth hard enough his jaw hurts. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Goodbye, Martha,” he grits out, and he pulls the phone away and ends the call.
He drops the phone with a thump on the ground. His hands come up to cover his face and for just a damn moment he closes his eyes and hides behind them as blood rushes in his ears and he can’t breathe again, goddamnit when will he ever be able to breathe.
…
“You know, I used to be in love once,” Alfred confesses one evening.
Bruce ignores him. He focuses on the bolt in front of him, turning it until it’s too tight and the wrench in his hands hurts as he grips it for dear life.
“It was beautiful,” Alfred continues. “She was beautiful. I loved her and she loved me and it was wonderful.”
“He’s with Lois,” Bruce snaps. He drops the wrench. The sound rings through the room and yet Alfred doesn’t flinch or move a muscle.
“He is,” Alfred agrees so damn gently. “And I can’t imagine how that must feel.”
…
Bruce contemplates throwing out the glasses.
They haunt him, in honesty. Every time he looks at them his chest aches, and he thought that with Clark back that feeling would go away. It hasn’t, and every time the glasses just infuriate him, the feeling in his chest makes it worse.
But then Clark arrives at the house one dreary afternoon.
Bruce is sitting in the living room. He’s moping, as Alfred has said, but he prefers to think he’s just watching the raindrops race down the glass windows. There’s paperwork strewn around him, a half-drunk cup of tea on the coffee table, his socked feet are burrowed under the cushion in front of him.
“You look cosy,” Clark says when he walks in the room.
Bruce doesn’t look his way immediately, keeps looking out the window as he tries to find words for Clark suddenly being here and in front of him. But he has to be polite lest Alfred strings him up, so he takes a moment more before he turns his head to look at Clark.
He nearly feels the breath knocked out of him for just a moment. It’s the first time he’s seen Clark since he’s admitted to himself that he loves him, and Clark is just standing there with a smile on his face, his shirt damp on his shoulders and his hair plastered wetly to his head, and he looks so at ease standing in Bruce’s house that Bruce has to shove down all the thoughts, all the fairytales he conjures in his head in that moment.
“What’re you doing here?” he finally asks when he sees the smile starting to slip on Clark’s face. He wants it to stay there. He doesn’t want Clark to never smile again.
“I, ah,” Clark starts to say. He raises his hand and scratches the back of his neck. It makes Bruce’s heart clench. “I just came by to see how you’re doing. I’ve heard from all the team besides you.”
“I’ve been busy,” Bruce lies. He sees Clark’s eyes flicker towards the piles of work everywhere. It’s nearly embarrassing.
“I can see that,” Clark agrees. Another smile flashes on his face as he gestures at the couch. “May I?”
Bruce pulls his feet out from under the cushion and drops them to the ground in answer. Clark moves closer and sinks down beside him, bringing the smell of fresh rain and damp clothes with him, and Bruce looks everywhere but at Clark.
There’s a hesitant moment where nothing is said. Bruce doesn’t know what to say. There are so many emotions building in him that he focuses on clamping them down, ignoring them until they go away.
They don’t.
“My glasses,” Clark eventually says, and Bruce watches as he leans forward and picks them up off the top of one of the piles. He resists the urge to slap Clark’s hand away from them. “I wondered where they’d gone. It’s hard to be Clark Kent without them.”
He puts them on, the lenses fogging up for a moment from the damp heat radiating from his skin. Bruce bites his tongue hard at how much of a sight it is to see. He wishes Alfred were here, something to distract him from this ridiculous man in front of him.
Clark looks at him when they’ve defogged enough to see through, and he gives Bruce a lopsided smile. “How come you have them?”
“Your mother gave them to me,” Bruce says, surprised at how easily the truth comes out.
Clark frowns. “Why?” he asks, and Bruce looks away again. He reaches for the forgotten tea instead of answering, lifting it and feeling how stone-cold it is.
“I’ll get us some tea,” he mutters, standing up and making to move away. He’s stopped though by a hand on his wrist, Clark tugging him back until his legs hit the couch and Bruce turns his head to look down at Clark.
“Bruce,” he says so damn softly. Bruce is worried it might become a habit. That people might keep talking to him like he’s some bloody china doll. “Why did my mother give you my glasses?”
Bruce can’t think all of sudden. There’s nothing that comes to mind, and he realises that he doesn’t know. There could be any reason, multiple reasons, but Bruce wonders if its because she knew. She knew his feelings. She knew before he did. He thinks that everyone knew before he did. It’s not surprising.
“I don’t know,” he says truthfully, the words so quiet in the air between them. The sound of the rain on the roof is thundering in his ears as Clark just looks at him. He wants to pull away, but it’s like his body is betraying him as he just lets Clark hold onto him.
But then Clark lets go. His face is unreadable. Bruce wonders what’s going through his head, but he doesn’t think he wants to know.
“I’ll get us some tea,” he repeats, and he takes a few steps back before fleeing from the room.
…
It’s good to be back in the Kent farmhouse, Bruce thinks.
He missed it. The apartment that Martha had rented was nice, albeit small, but seeing her standing in the middle of the lounge and directing the movers is just right.
He’s helping despite everyone’s obvious surprise. Martha has assigned him the job of unpacking the kitchen and it’s easy to pack everything away where it was. He’s been in this house enough times since Clark died that it feels almost like a second home.
Alfred is upstairs with Martha now, sorting her bedroom out with no doubt the precision that only those two have. The last time he saw Clark, he was with Lois in his own bedroom. Frankly, the kitchen just feels like a safe zone.
He’s just putting the bowls away in the cupboard when the kettle starts to whistle on the stove. There are eight mugs lined up beside it, one for everyone. Martha had insisted on doing it herself, but Bruce had pointed out that he was in the kitchen anyway.
Really, it just keeps him busy. Keeps his hands moving. Keeps his brain thinking.
He knows everyone’s orders. Three cups of tea, four cups of coffee, and one hot chocolate. He’s pretty sure he found a tray in one of the boxes before, and after he finishes pouring each drink he starts to rummage through one of the cupboards.
“Could you use a hand?”
Bruce jumps, banging his head on the door, and he hisses as he steps away. Unfortunately, he steps right into the ever-so-helpful Clark who looks concerned as he reaches for Bruce’s head.
“I didn’t mean to give you a fright,” he says as he cups one of his large hands around the back of Bruce’s head and pulls him in. It’s a testament to how far gone Bruce is that he just lets him. “What happened to all the constant vigilance?”
Bruce would glare at him if his face wasn’t almost being smushed into Clark’s chest. Even so, he’s asking himself the same question. Normally, he’d know of everything and everyone around him. Normally, he’d be so hyper-aware of his surroundings that nothing could surprise him.
But he knows why. He knows it's because of this house. It's because of Martha. He’s too relaxed and he grits his teeth and pushes away from Clark, not saying a word.
When he looks up, Clark looks almost upset, but his usual smile comes back in full force. “You should be fine,” he says with a pat to Bruce’s shoulder. “Only looks like a little bump.”
It feels like a lot more, too be honest. Bruce’s head is pounding with a fresh headache and the side of his head is tender, but he won’t let that show. Instead, he turns back to the cupboard and reaches for the tray he spots in the back.
“I never thought I’d see Bruce Wayne serving people drinks,” Clark comments as Bruce loads up the tray with the mugs, and Bruce shoots him a sharp look. Clark holds his hands up in surrender but is still damn smiling. “It’s not a bad look.”
“I thought you were helping Lois upstairs,” Bruce mutters. He nearly tips the hot chocolate over as it burns his hand.
Clark sighs and he leans against the bench beside the stovetop. “She’s busy grilling Mom about the curtains in the house.” At Bruce’s raised eyebrows, Clark shrugs. “She said something about being too thin for draft prevention.”
Bruce shakes his head and looks back down at the drinks. He wouldn’t know a damn thing about curtains. A small part of him wishes his life were that normal.
“I heard you rustling down here and thought I could come give you a hand,” Clark continues after a few beats. “Mom has enough casserole dishes to fill up a whole shop, I think.”
Bruce can feel the blood rushing in his ears. He knows he’s not being kicked out, he knows that, but deep down he can feel his own inadequacy start to catch up on him. His hands tighten on the handles of the tray until he can feel the fake metal starting to warp.
“It’s fine, Clark,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “Go and help your family. I’ll be fine-”
“Bruce,” Clark interrupts, reaching out to wrap a hand around Bruce’s forearm. Bruce wonders, for a moment, if this is going to become a habit. “I want to talk to you.”
Bruce takes a deep breath before he squares his shoulders and looks directly at Clark. “To talk about what?” he asks flatly. Clark looks at him hard for a moment, the smile gone now. There’s a newfound seriousness to the air.
“Mom told me what you’ve done for her,” he says. Bruce flinches and tries to look away, but Clark’s gaze holds him still. “I’ve thanked you for the house already, Bruce, but I don’t know if there will ever be a way to thank you for what you did for my mother.”
“It was-”
“Don’t say nothing, because it wasn’t nothing,” Clark scolds. His grip tightens on Bruce’s arm until it’s almost painful. “You kept her sane. You helped her when no one else did. I know…” He sighs and pulls away. “I know everyone else was grieving and everyone has their own ways to grieve, but you reached out and helped my mother when you didn’t have to.”
Bruce nearly bites his tongue to stop his reply, but that doesn’t work. “It was a duty I owed you,” he says uncomfortably. Clark rolls his eyes though.
“You didn’t kill me, Bruce,” he says firmly, full of conviction. “Whatever thoughts you have around that, you did not kill me.”
“I did,” Bruce replies immediately, and his voice is just as solid and firm as Clark’s. “If it weren’t for me and my refusal to listen, Luthor would never have been able to turn us against one another. There would never have been the kryptonite spear-”
“If it weren’t for you, the kryptonite would still have been in Luthor’s hands,” Clark interrupts him, his voice slightly raised. “If it weren’t for you, there would never have been the kryptonite weapons that were the only way to kill Doomsday.” He steps closer, pushing Bruce back up against the counters. “If it weren’t for you, my mother would be dead and the world would’ve been destroyed by Luthor’s damn ambitions.”
Bruce stands with his mouth half-open, unable to answer as Clark towers over him. He wants to fight back, wants to point out all his flaws, wants Clark to understand that this is Bruce’s fault, but he can already see that Clark won’t let him.
“You’re a good man, Bruce Wayne,” Clark says. “I wish you could see that.”
Bruce is left speechless, his knees are weak and the fight has just left him. Clark looms over him for a moment longer before he steps back, sighs, and picks up the tray of drinks.
He leaves Bruce alone in the kitchen, calling out to the others as he goes, and Bruce slumps against the counter and tries not to fall.
…
“Do you know how I managed to move on?” Diana asks him.
They’re standing by the edge of the lake. Their shoes are muddy, their jackets are damp, and Bruce doesn’t think he cares as he watched the ducks swim past.
“You didn’t,” he points out, and Diana lets out a small laugh.
“No,” she says. “No, I didn’t. But I learnt to live with it, which is so much worse.”
Bruce glances at her. She’s beautiful. She looks like she belongs here down by the lake. The ducks always swarm towards her, but not for food. It’s like they yearn to be in her presence, just to sit at her feet is enough for them. Bruce thinks that makes sense.
“I left Themyscria to fight another man’s war,” she continues after a long pause. “I went because I thought it was right.” She sighs, and Bruce doesn’t think its right for her to be so sad. “Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Steve Trevor and then, somehow, I lost him straight after.”
He doesn’t know what to say. There’s not much he can say. He just watches as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small watch. It’s old. Very old. Bruce wonders if it’s Steve Trevor’s.
“I’ll never forget his last words to me,” she murmurs, her voice so quiet now as she rubs her thumb over the watch face. “I wish we had more time.” She looks at Bruce and he sees the tears in her eyes. “I wish we’d had more time too.”
“I’m sorry,” Bruce says. He looks back to the still water, giving her the privacy as she wipes her eyes.
“Thank you.” She clears her throat. “What I’m trying to say though, Bruce, is that… maybe it’s time to learn to live with this.”
Bruce thinks of Clark. Clark with the kind eyes. A bright smile. The Clark who makes Bruce’s chest ache and swell at the same time. Clark, who Bruce thinks is so out of reach that it makes him breathless and angry all at once.
“I don’t know how,” he admits shakily, and Diana sighs beside him.
…
Bruce tries though. He tries to move on, tries to live with the fact that Clark will never be his.
He sees the way Alfred and Diana watch him with kind eyes, but he sees the pity in them. He knows they don’t think he can do it, and it pushes him to try more.
He throws himself into his work. He pushes Wayne Enterprises into bigger and better projects. He starts to rebuild the manor from its bare bones. He works as hard as he can to form the Justice League into a working syndicate. He sets about gathering information for new recruits.
He works until he falls into bed at night already asleep. He works until he can’t think of anything but running numbers. He works until he can’t even remember what he’s trying to move past, and when he remembers he just works more.
He thinks he’s getting there. He thinks he’s moving on. His chest hurts less and less now. His emotions stop bleeding everywhere for everyone to see. He’s starting to feel normal again for the first time since Clark Kent’s damn funeral.
And then Lois Lane breaks up with Clark Kent.
…
“I don’t know what happened,” Martha tells him as she plucks more apples from the tree above her.
Bruce stands just beside her with a wicker basket in hand. It’s half full of fresh ripe apples, spring delivering a fresh load of new fruits. Martha yanks a branch harshly from the tree and comes down with a few more ripe apples in hand. She drops one in the basket after scrutinising it before slicing the leftovers with the knife on her belt.
“They were just planning the wedding,” she continues as slices before she hands the knife to Bruce to hold then lobs the sliced apples over the fence for the horses to eat. “It was going to be here in the barn. Something simple. A small gathering.” She smiles softly. “Just like mine and Jonathan’s really.”
She pauses for a moment before she gestures for Bruce to follow her as she makes her way to the plum tree a couple of feet away. Her dog yips at her feet happily before Martha shoos her away with a light laugh. Bruce watches the dog sprint towards a flock of ducks as he dutifully follows Martha to the next tree.
“They were just about to send out all the invitations a few weeks ago when I last saw them,” Martha keeps explaining as she reaches for the lowest hanging plums. “Then, next moment, Clark turns up on my doorstep looking more miserable than a dog without a bone.” She punctuates the end of her sentence by dropping a load of plums into the basket.
“And you really don’t know why?” Bruce asks. He’s a bit awkward in doing so. He’s curious, of course he is, but he doesn’t want to come across as opportunistic.
Martha clucks her tongue as she picks a couple of very ripe plums and hands one to him. “No idea,” she says as she holds up her own before taking a bite. Bruce follows suit. “Clark won’t talk to me about it. He keeps shutting himself away in his room or disappearing for hours at a time to heavens knows where.”
Bruce chews thoughtfully. The plum is delicious, just sweet enough. Martha smiles at him through her own mouthful before she turns back to continue harvesting.
“It’s been a few weeks now,” she continues as she plucks plums with precision. “I would’ve thought Clark would talk to someone, anyone at this point. But he just keeps festering.”
“You haven’t asked Lois?”
Martha sighs and stops her harvesting to turn to Bruce with a disappointed look on her face. “I admire that girl,” she says. “She’s absolutely wonderful. But I think she has the same emotional capability as Clark does at times. Neither one of them seem happy about the breakup, but they’re also not interested in getting back together either.”
She huffs and blows a stray bit of hair off her forehead. It refuses to go though and she brushes it away with a frustrated noise. Bruce nearly smiles but instead drops his gaze to the basket as she grumbles something under her breath.
They turn back to harvesting the fruits though, and Bruce just trundles along behind her as they move to the feijoa tree. The silence is comfortable and the company is welcoming, and Bruce looks out over the farm and watches Martha’s dog chase after the nearby ducks and he just relaxes.
He loves it here. He can admit that to himself. After all this time, he feels at home.
“Can I be honest, Bruce?” Martha asks quietly though when they’re finished harvesting the trees and are heading back towards the house.
Bruce hesitates for a moment. He’s proud that Martha sees him as a confidant but he still has moments where he thinks that he’s in the wrong.
It doesn’t matter though. “Of course,” he answers. Martha pauses just before the steps to the porch and turns to face him with a troubled look.
“I never did think they’d stay together,” she admits, and Bruce feels wrong. “It’s not because of anything sinister or disapproving,” she quickly says before sighing. “It’s just... he could never quite be who he wanted to be when he was with her.”
“Why?” Bruce asks, and he nearly hits himself for saying so. He should be quiet, but it seems Martha appreciates the prompt
“I might be barking up the wrong tree,” she says with a lopsided smile, “but I think he needs someone who will let him be Superman and Clark Kent at the same time. Someone who loves both of them. Someone who can tell them apart and support him no matter what. Someone who can hold their own just as he can.”
Bruce is about to open his mouth to say something, but Martha lets out a huff before she shakes her head.
“Call me crazy,” she says as she reaches out and claps Bruce’s shoulder, “but I’ve always thought he’d end up with someone like you.”
Bruce freezes. His mouth falls open just slightly. The words make his head spin and his brain overloads and for a long moment, he doesn’t know what to do or say as Martha just smiles at him with the kindest eyes.
“Anyway,” she says cheerfully as she pulls away and climbs the stairs. “Those apples won’t bake themselves.”
Bruce watches her walk into the house, the dog bouncing up the steps to join her, and, after a moment, Bruce shakes himself and follows suit.
…
The ache in Bruce’s chest comes back.
It was almost gone, just a twinge every now and again when he thought about Clark. Sometimes when he thought of Martha. Sometimes it would happen when he stood in Martha’s kitchen and watched Clark bound down the stairs. Sometimes it was when he could hear Clark’s laugh.
Alfred said it’s because he was moving on.
But it was almost gone, almost dissipates, and Bruce never realised how much it hurt until the day he sees her.
...
Lois Lane on his doorstep is never something Bruce expected.
It’s strange to open the door so early in the morning to see her standing there. Bruce’s eyes are bleary, it is after all very early morning, but he can see she’s wide awake and almost impatient.
She doesn’t look happy. Bruce can see the dark shadows under her eyes despite her attempt at makeup. Her hair is in a ponytail, but it’s not for style. He can recognise the greasy, slicked back, barely-thrown together look, and he’s a master of the struggling-to-hold-it-together look himself.
“I’ll make some tea,” he mutters as he steps back to let her in. It’s early enough that not even Alfred is awake. Hell, the sun isn’t even up yet.
Lois doesn’t say a word though as she follows him to the kitchen. She’s not wearing heels like she normally does, the echoing click-clack missing from her walk. Comfortable and quiet shoes, casual attire, not at all like her usual reporting outfit.
Bruce flicks the kettle and pulls down two mugs from the cupboard. He drops a teabag in each before he turns to her.
“Where are you going?” he asks, and he sees her frown before she sighs and sinks into a chair at the breakfast bar, dropping her rucksack on top of the counter.
“The Middle-East,” she answers flatly, her voice slightly husky. It reminds Bruce of how Martha sounds after she cries. “How did you know?”
Bruce doesn’t reply. Just looks at her pointedly until she sighs and drags a hand down her face. He notices the missing diamond on her finger and he shouldn’t feel lighter seeing that but he does.
He wonders if that makes him a bad person?
“There’s a series of rogue militia groups that’ve agreed to some interviews for the Daily,” she says when it’s obvious Bruce won’t say a word. “I offered to do them. I thought the timing was right.”
The kettle flicks behind him and Bruce turns to finish their drinks. He adds a healthy amount of sugar to her own. It looks like she needs the rush. He offers milk and she shakes her head.
He adds a dollop to his own. He even contemplates another teabag just to up his caffeine level.
She thanks him when he slides her mug towards her and she cups it with two hands. He feels sympathy for her. It's hard to watch your life go up in smoke and it’s worse the second time around. Bruce knows that. But he stays silent. Lois Lane doesn’t seem the type to take sympathy well.
“Cute,” she says when she holds up her mug. It’s got the Bat symbol printed on it in yellow and black. Bruce smiles.
“Alfred bought it for me last Christmas,” he tells her. “His idea of a joke.”
She smiles and takes a sip of her tea. She lets out a pleased hum as she clearly savours it. Bruce looks away awkwardly as he sips his own.
The ticking of the clock is the only noise between them for a long time. Bruce wants to ask her why she’s here, but he doesn’t want to be insensitive. Alfred would cane his ass if he pushed Lois into crying which, frankly, she looks like she’s on the verge of doing.
Thankfully, Lois starts to speak after a while.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” she mumbles, her voice muffled by the mug she’s holding to her mouth.
“I’m assuming it’s not for an interview?” Bruce answers sarcastically, and Lois gives a small laugh.
“Now that would be a scoop,” she says with a smile. “Someone finally getting an exclusive with hard-to-catch bachelor, Bruce Wayne.” She lets out another laugh as she shakes her head. “As tempting as that is, I’m afraid not.”
“Then why are you here?”
She pauses for a moment, pursing her lips as she avoids Bruce’s eyes. “Have you wondered why Clark and I broke up?” She asks hesitantly.
Bruce flexes his fingers around his mug. “No,” he lies.
She smiles at him though, her jaw tight and eyes mirthless. “It’s too early in the morning to lie, Bruce. Let’s not.”
Bruce looks away from her to stare down at his half-empty mug. He thinks he should feel scolded by being called out but he doesn’t. She’s got a point. There’s no reason to have a conversation this early in the morning if Bruce is going to lie his way through it.
“I told him once that I didn’t think we were possible,” she tells him. Her voice is quiet, barely more than a whisper. “That he couldn’t love me and be him at the same time.” She looks up. Her eyes are rimmed red and Bruce tries to remember where the nearest box of tissues are. “He didn’t believe me. Told me I was just being cynical and I thought he was right.”
She raises her mug and sips her tea for a long time. Bruce finishes his own off and just rolls the mug between his palms as he waits for her to continue. It’s clear there's more to the story.
“I was right,” she eventually continues. “We’re not compatible. It’s not that I don’t love him. What’s not to love.” She looks at Bruce pointedly, and Bruce refuses to look away. “But it isn’t possible for him to love me and be him.”
The sudden ripping feeling in Bruce's chest is almost staggering. He’s no longer used to it, the sheer intensity. He grips his mug tight enough for it to break as he tries to breathe through it. The thought of her saying this to Clark is horrific and painful. He thinks of Clark’s bright smile and wonders how long before it fell from his face.
Lois sighs, catching his attention again, and pushes her finished mug towards Bruce. He automatically pours them out another cup each with fresh teabags. There’s an abandoned teapot beside the kettle that Bruce thinks he should’ve filled up instead.
“I can’t have my heart broken again, Bruce,” Lois confesses when he pushes the next mug towards her. Her fingers overlap his for just a moment as she takes it. They’re cold to touch and Bruce flinches away. “I love him, but being with him and watching him do the things he does, knowing that I can’t help him? It’s unbearable.”
“So you ended it,” Bruce states, and Lois nods.
“I ended it before it ruined us both,” she says, and it sounds more like she’s trying to convince herself that. “I can’t ask him to not be Superman, but I can’t ask myself to be okay with the possibility that every time he leaves, he might never come back.”
Bruce doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t know what to say. Part of him wants to yell at her for being selfish, but another wants to praise her for being sensible. It’s horrible. So, he stays quiet and drinks his tea and tries not to think.
“I need a favour,” Lois murmurs when the time has ticked by and there’s nothing but dregs left in their mugs. “I have something-”
He cuts her off the moment she pulls out the small box in her pocket. “No,” he says firmly, and Lois’s hand trembles. “I will not be your messenger.”
“Please,” she pleads, pushing the box across the counter towards him. “I’m leaving now, Bruce. I can’t give it to him.”
There’s a diamond ring under that lid. He knows that. It makes his fists clench hard enough his knuckles turn white. A small, selfish part of himself has always wanted that ring gone. But now that it’s here? Now that she’s asking him the unthinkable? No.
Bruce doesn’t even have Clark’s heart. He won’t break it for Lois Lane.
“I have to go,” Lois is saying though, her hands are quick as she gathers her things. Bruce doesn’t have time to say a word as she backs out of the room. He’s tempted to chase after her, but his legs feel rooted to the ground.
“Lois,” he calls out, and he sees her pause just briefly. He shouldn’t say the words desperate to come out, but he can’t stop himself. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, “but I hope that it takes you a long time to come back.”
She stares at him for a moment, eyes searching his, before she sighs. “I hope so too, Bruce.”
She doesn’t say goodbye after that. She just gives him one last pleading look before she flees from the room. He hears the front door slam and he wonders if it’ll wake Alfred. He’ll be furious that Bruce didn’t wake him for the unannounced guest.
The box still sits in front of him. Bruce contemplates smashing it. Destroying all evidence of it. He’s tempted to reach out and touch it but his fingers just graze the velvet box and he pulls his hand back as if it’s burnt him. He can’t do anything but stare at it.
It takes longer than he’s expecting, but he does eventually hear the rattling in the hallway of Alfred getting up, and he swipes the box into a random drawer before he flicks the jug once again.
…
That night, Bruce dreams of Doomsday.
He dreams of holding a green-tipped spear, of growing weaker the longer he wields it. He dreams of Diana and Clark watching him, their mouths open and nothing coming out. He dreams of Doomsday roaring as Bruce arcs towards him as fast as he can muster.
He dreams of Doomsday’s arm slamming through his chest, of the agony as it burns and burns and burns until Bruce can’t breathe and his eyes go black.
And when he wakes, he screams.
…
Bruce forgets about the ring.
Well, no, he doesn’t. He’s reminded of it constantly. He doesn’t think he can forget the glittering diamond and its obnoxiousness and it reminds him of too much. He hates it. Really, he wants nothing more than to pulverise it to dust.
But he does forget it in the drawer. It’s not an active thing. He doesn’t just decide suddenly to forget it there, it just happens. Alfred doesn’t say a word at all even though Bruce knows he must’ve seen it by now. It’s right beside the wooden spoons. Of course, Alfred has seen it.
But it doesn’t get mentioned, and Bruce prefers it that way.
He takes a lot of time trying to figure out how to get it to Clark. Personally? Delivered? Left at the farmhouse? Does he even give it to Clark at all? Can Bruce be that person to just add more shit to Clark’s day? To be the one to add that final nail to the coffin? Can he be so heartless?
It makes him laugh to think that. He’s been heartless for so damn long. He’s always been the one to make the hard play, always willing to sacrifice himself and those around him. He’s always been prepared for the worst. But now? He’s kidding himself if he thinks he can still be so ruthless.
Luckily, Clark solves his problem a week or so later. Bruce is honestly thankful. This whole decision has done something to his nerves that nothing else ever has. Alfred says it because hurting someone you love by accident is painful, but doing it on purpose is decimating.
Bruce tries not to think about that.
But Clark finds him one afternoon. Bruce is at the manor, perched up on some scaffolding that’s towering around the outside of the building. It’s the third check he’s doing on the construction process, although this time he’s doing it on the weekend. The stares of all the tradesman as Bruce had walked amongst them the last two times had just been unnerving and he’s not keen to experience that again.
He’s just having a break when he sees Clark approaching. There’s nothing else in the sky except for Clark’s small blip, the horrid view of that plaid jacket coming towards him, and Bruce kicks his legs where they dangle from the scaffolding as he waits for Clark to get closer.
His palms are already starting to sweat a bit when Clark comes to a stop in front of him, and he rubs them over his pant legs as Clark floats for a moment before ducking under the bars and seating himself beside Bruce.
“It’s looking good,” Clark says before Bruce can even think to say anything himself. “It’s really gotten underway too. Can’t be much longer until it’s finished?”
“Couple of weeks,” Bruce agrees. He turns to see Clark looking at him with a small smile. It’s unexpected, and Bruce drops his gaze.
“You must be proud of all of this,” Clark continues though. He nudges Bruce’s side with an elbow that has Bruce nearly jumping a mile high. “You’ve achieved a lot. It’s incredible.”
“Most of it was Diana’s ideas,” he starts to mutter, but Clark nudges him again.
“Nah,” he disagrees. “She’s told me it’s all you.”
Bruce refuses to blush. He can feel his cheeks burning though and he wants to scratch away the feeling. He doesn’t do this. He doesn’t flush or blush or turn beet red or whatever other ways there are to say it. Bruce is above all that. He’s always been above all that.
But clearly, he’s not, as the feeling doesn’t die away. He’s so focused on it that when Clark moves beside him, he flinches as their thighs touch. It makes him hyper-aware of just how close Clark is, and he tries to ignore the way Clark’s shoulder keeps brushing against his. Feather-light. But still touching.
“It’s really going to look beautiful when it’s finished-” Clark continues, and Bruce grits his teeth as he cuts him off.
“Why’re you here, Clark?” he asks abruptly, and he’s surprised when Clark startles, his thigh jumping against Bruce’s.
“I’m here to see a friend,” he responds defensively. Bruce snorts and shakes his head. That’s bullshit if he’s ever heard any. He shuffles around and raises his eyebrows at Clark.
Clark just raises his back.
“We’re not friends,” Bruce can’t stop himself from say as he quickly looks away. “We barely know each other.”
“Now, we both know that’s not true,” Clark states. There’s no heat in his voice. Just conviction. “I know lots about you, but not as much as I’d like too.” He bumps his shoulder purposefully against Bruce’s. “And you know a ridiculous amount about me. It’s almost scary.”
“I don’t-” Bruce starts to deny, but Clark lets out a loud huff.
“How do I have my coffee then?” he asks.
Bruce tries to stop himself, but the answer just tumbles out. “Two sugars and half a mug of milk,” he says automatically, and when Clark grins at him brightly, Bruce glares back. “It’s a travesty to coffee.”
Clark laughs and it’s incredible. Bruce feels himself starting to flush again at the damn sound and he grits his teeth as he stares resolutely ahead. He should be able to tell the pattern on the leaf in front of him with how intensely he’s looking at it, but he can’t even think of the type of damn tree it is with how distracted he is.
“So you didn’t come here because of some ulterior motive then?” Bruce mutters. “Like the fact that Lois Lane was only here just over a week ago? And dropped something off of yours?”
He shouldn’t sound so damn bitter. He’s got no reason to be. He almost hates himself when Clark sobers up suddenly behind him, and Bruce feels the shoulder pressed against his slump.
“No,” Clark murmurs, his voice quieter now. Bruce hates that he’s done that. “I was actually hoping this was the place to come to not talk about that.” He looks up, and Bruce sees the hurt all over his face and it makes Bruce’s chest ache something fierce.
He gets it though. He gets the need for sanctuary, and he nods his head slowly.
“I’ve got to keep doing the construction check,” he says as he starts to stand. He pushes Clark away just enough to get up, and when he looks down its to see Clark looking slightly rejected. “I could use some help. It’s hard checking the alcoves by myself. I keep having to drag a ladder around, and I’m not really prepared to carry it up two flights of stairs.”
Clark watches him with a frown for a long moment. Bruce takes just a second to admire the blue eyes and the softness that only Clark can emanate before he sighs and nudges Clark with his foot.
“That’s a hint,” he states, and Clark lets out a small noise before he bursts into a, frankly, ridiculous grin as he bounds to his feet. He’s almost thrumming with excitement, and Bruce rolls his eyes as he shoulders past Clark and starts to lead the way back down the scaffolding.
Admittedly, he does smile to himself.
…
Clark is around all the time, after that.
Bruce doesn’t anticipate it at all. He thought that the one day was just a fluke and that Clark would disappear again just like he has before. He doesn’t expect him to become a constant.
It starts with Clark turning up every weekend and insisting on a construction check at the manor. Bruce has to stop filing them after the third weekend in a row before the project manager throws a fit, but he won’t deny Clark this. Seeing him flying around the high ceilings of the manor rooms and gushing over the constriction work and the art that Bruce is getting installed is not just good for Clark, but it makes that ache in Bruce’s chest ease.
When Clark starts to appear on the weekdays though is what actually surprises Bruce. It’s strange that he’s become used to walking into the kitchen and seeing Clark and Alfred bent over a pot or dolled up in aprons and covered in flour. It’s dangerous for him though, Clark grinning at him with smudges of flour on his cheeks. Bruce hopes that Clark doesn’t listen to his heartbeat at those times.
They mention Lois once. It’s only when they’re sitting together in the lounge halfheartedly watching the television. Some reporter is commenting on Superman’s latest save and Clark has turned the volume down until Bruce has to strain to hear it. They’re more focused on the pack of cards dealt out in front of them as they play a game of war, something that’s been going on for well over an hour now.
“I have your ring,” Bruce cracks after a while. It’s been on his mind for too long now since he moved it from the drawer. He didn’t want to run the risk of Clark seeing it whilst cooking with Alfred.
He gets the look he feared he would. Clark’s face crumples for a moment and his hands tremble. He slowly lowers his deck to the couch cushions as he breathes slowly, and Bruce looks out the window in an attempt to give him privacy, watching the wind blow the leaves off the trees outside. For a moment, he wishes he was blown away with them.
He silently curses Lois Lane.
“Can you get rid of it?” Clark asks, his voice so damn small. Bruce looks at him to see Clark staring resolutely at the upright facing ace of spades. The card has probably never had this much scrutiny before. “Please?”
Bruce agrees. Within a week, he’s had it sold to someone who’ll appreciate it. He cashes the money, and over a period of months, he slowly sneaks the cash into all of Martha’s own hiding spots around her house.
Clark catches him once or twice. He doesn’t seem fazed, instead gets on board, and Bruce shouldn’t really enjoy the times they sneak around the house together like teenagers, but he does.
Martha thinks it’s wonderful. Somehow, Bruce ends up spending more time at the Kent farm. It’s not really intentional, but Bruce wonders if Clark orchestrated it somehow by purposefully leaving that horrid plaid jacket strung over one of his breakfast barstools.
She smiles more. Clark smiles more. Even Bruce’s cheeks start to ache a little.
It’s good though. Bruce can admit that to himself. It’s good to have Clark around all the time. It’s good to be part of the healing process for him. It helps Bruce too, helps him to learn and grow, helps him to move on past Clark. It does. He’s sure it does. He’s sure that all this time spent together isn’t making things worse, isn’t making his fingers itch, isn’t making his breaths harder to catch, isn’t making it harder and harder to walk away from Clark, isn’t making it worse knowing that he can get this close but no damn closer.
He just has to remind himself of that a lot.
…
He wakes up one morning to Martha smiling down at him.
There’s a crick in his neck from spending the night on the Kent sofa. He’s too big for it, but he’d ignored Clark’s insisting to share his bed. There are lines that Bruce won’t cross for his own sanity.
He’s thankful though when Martha hands him a warm mug of coffee as he sits up and blinks away the sleep in his eyes. She’s perched on the edge of the coffee table in front of him, her own mug gripped in her hands as she watches him. She looks ready for farm work in her raincoat and gumboots. Bruce hopes she’s not waking him to help.
“Thank you,” he grumbles as he takes a sip. The coffee is reviving as it warms his throat and he lets out a small satisfied noise. It makes Martha grin at him, the desired effect, and Bruce gives her a small smile back. “Need help rustling sheep?”
She snorts. “Not today, young fella,” she says as she pats his knee. “No. Just the horses. The paddocks are too muddy for them. Pippi is already in the stables after spraining her fetlock trying to pull herself out of the mud yesterday.”
Bruce winces. Poor horse. He knows Pippi reasonably well. In fact, he knows most of the Kent horses well. There’s something about them that’s always been calming for Bruce. It’s probably the intelligence he sees behind their eyes and the fondness they show him when he sneaks them apples when Martha isn’t looking.
He starts to stand up, ready to help her move them, but Martha reaches out and places a hand on his chest to push him back down on the sofa. He goes without complaint, but he does raise his eyebrows at her in question.
Martha’s smile just slips into something softer and smaller though as she looks back at him. “How are you?” she asks, and the question throws Bruce more than she could know. “I’m asking you genuinely, Bruce. How are you?”
They haven’t spoken for a long time, just the two of them. Bruce had let his visits fall by the wayside after Clark’s return, not wanting to step on any toes, and now whenever he’s here it’s often with Clark. He does miss Martha just on his own. The acceptance she gives him, the understanding, it’s all there and he almost wants to lean across the space between them and drop his head on her shoulder for just a moment.
Because he’s not okay. No. He’s not. He feels like he’s drowning and there’s no way out.
“I’m…” he starts to say but he trails off. What can he say? He stares at the space over Martha’s shoulder at the old wallpaper and desperately wants to just blend in with it.
She sighs and, before Bruce can stop her, she leans forward and wraps her arms around him. Her hand comes up to the back of his head and pushes his face into her shoulder, and it’s just in time too as suddenly Bruce feels a sob rip from him with brutal force and he buries himself into her arms.
“I know,” she murmurs, and Bruce grips her so tightly he fears she might break.
…
“This isn’t exactly moving on.”
Bruce grits his teeth at Alfred’s words. He doesn’t turn to look at him. He keeps his eyes trained on Clark and Diana where they hover in the air together admiring the cornices in the manor living room. They’re all Grecian friezes, something Bruce thought Diana would love when he picked them out. She’s been telling Clark the stories behind them for hours now.
“It could be,” Bruce responds weakly, and he hears Alfred sigh behind him. He tightens his hands into fists, squeezing until they hurt.
“You know it’s not.”
Alfred’s hand drops onto Bruce’s shoulder and he flinches at the contact. He doesn’t want pity. He doesn’t even want sympathy. This is his burden to bear.
“I’m fine, Alfred,” he says with as much conviction as he can muster. He turns to look at Alfred and sees that the man isn’t convinced though as he just stares at Bruce with that all-knowing look. “I swear, I am.”
Alfred just keeps looking though. Bruce feels laid open and stripped bare under that gaze but he refuses to look away. It doesn’t do anything to change Alfred’s look though as he just shakes his head and lets his hand fall off Bruce’s shoulder.
“It’s going to come crashing down again, Master Bruce,” he says firmly but softly, so softly that Bruce hates it. He doesn’t want this. “Can you handle that again?”
Bruce glares at Alfred and doesn’t answer.
…
There’s nothing worse, Bruce decides, than falling in love.
It’s horrible. It’s cruel. Bruce has never felt it before and he thinks it’s a wicked twist of fate that the person he does fall in love with will never love him back.
Clark is incredible. He’s strong, kind, genuine, a goddamn hero if there is such a thing. Bruce could hold up a thesaurus and there still wouldn’t be enough words to define how amazing Clark Kent is.
It’s hard, but Bruce starts to live with the fact that they will only ever be friends. He can see it in everyone’s eyes how much he struggles. Alfred always looks sad, the one thing that Bruce has never wanted for him. Diana burns with fire and reassurance until Bruce douses it with a single glance. Martha tries, oh she tries, but there’s nothing for her to say that can change anything.
But it’s okay. It’s okay. Bruce can do this. He can be Clark’s friend and he can take what he's given and it will always be okay.
So it’s good, it’s better than good. Bruce spends so much time with Clark and learns about him from him. It’s different in so many good ways, brutal in horrid ways, but it’s okay.
…
Clark asks him the worst question one night.
They’re patrolling Gotham together. Bruce knows they’re a stark contrast, his dark black against Clark’s bright blue and red. He thinks it’s poetic really.
He never did like poems that much.
“I never see you with anyone,” Clark muses as they sit on a rooftop. There’s blaring sirens all around them that makes it hard for Bruce to hear him, but he can tune it out. Sirens are quiet for Gotham. If there were none then Bruce would be concerned.
But he doesn’t know what to say, so he remains silent. He can feel Clark’s gaze on him, something he wants to shake off, but Bruce just stares staunchly ahead and curls his gloved hands into fists.
Admittedly, his heart is beating in his throat and he vehemently hopes that Clark isn’t listening too closely.
“I always thought Bruce Wayne had the playboy reputation to uphold,” Clark continues after he’s clearly waited long enough. “I don’t see you with girls at parties or anything.”
“I’m past that,” Bruce responds. His voice is gruff and gravely, mainly due to the voice changer stuck to this throat, but he can feel how the words wrench themselves from his mouth. This is a new level of uncomfortable for him, something he never thought he’d reach.
Clark let’s out a snort. “Past the playboying or past appearing as a playboy?”
Bruce turns a glare to him. This isn’t really a conversation he wants to be having. “Both,” he says shortly.
Clark just raises his eyebrows. “Any reason?” he asks, and Bruce knows it’s a casual question but he feels his hackles rise nonetheless.
But there’s no point. Clark isn’t the enemy. He’s not there to hurt Bruce. He can’t blame the man’s simple curiosity and, even though the effort is phenomenal, Bruce forces himself to relax. He lets out a steadying breath as he unclenches his fists, splaying them out on his knees.
“There’s nothing that screams loneliness more than the man who goes to bed with a different person each night only to wake up by himself every morning,” Bruce admits. He feels Clark stiffen beside him. They’re close enough, shoulders a hairsbreadth apart. “So I stopped. My reputation has suffered for it, but at this point, I’m beyond caring what the public thinks of me.”
Clark hums beside him in response, and Bruce realises how tense he is despite his attempts to relax. He knows it’s because he’s waiting for Clark to judge him, waiting for Clark to punish him for the horrible things he’s done. It’s painful, and his jaw nearly cracks with how tightly he's set it as he waits.
“I’m sorry,” Clark says, and all the tension rushes from Bruce in a sudden wave. “I’m sorry you ever had to feel that way, Bruce. You deserve better.”
His smile is so damn genuine. Bruce doesn’t know if he wants to kiss him or punch him. He doesn’t know what to do with all these feelings bubbling up in him every time he sees Clark like this. He’s never felt them before, and it’s hard enough chalking them up to being meaningless let alone trying to deny them altogether.
“So, you never thought about, I don’t know, being in a committed relationship then?” Clark asks, and there’s a joking tone but Bruce can hear the seriousness of the question.
“No,” he states bluntly. He doesn’t know if it’s a lie.
Clark frowns at him and Bruce just raises his eyebrows back. “So there’s no one special then?” Clark pushes. “You don’t… care for anyone that way?”
“No.”
“Why?” he murmurs, voice so damn quiet, and Bruce feels everything in him suddenly freeze.
Everything stops for just a moment as his breath hitches in his throat and it’s so painful.
Because of you, he wants to suddenly shout. Because of you, Clark. He wants to reach out and shake him, yell at him, scream his name at the top of his lungs because Bruce loves him and everything he does is because of him. Because every waking thought is always about him, about Clark. About how much he wants him and needs him and how everything is for him. That Bruce’s every move is always about Clark, every little thing he does is always about how this could help Clark, save Clark, make Clark smile that goddamn stupid smile. How all Bruce wants is to hear that damn laugh and feel Clark’s hands on him, all over him. He just wants to breathe Clark in like he’s the only thing Bruce needs to live. That every damn thing is about Clark and always has and always will.
He wants to cry and shout and bleed everything he has at Clark, tell him how much he loves him and hates him and everything in between. He wants Clark to know about the burning and aching in his chest just so he knows it’s for him, because of him, because of Clark because it is. This is. Everything is.
The moment that Clark died was the moment that Bruce’s life went up in total fucking smoke and Bruce didn’t ask for this, didn’t want this, but every fibre of his being loves Clark and wants him and needs him and it’s agony not having him, that Alfred was right, that devastation would be a hell of a lot more than whatever he’s feeling now.
It’s so much, it feels like Bruce is going to explode at any moment because it’s so damn much. He wants to shake Clark, hold him, punch him, kiss him, devastate him as much as he’s devastated Bruce.
“No reason,” Bruce murmurs though, his entire being screaming at him otherwise but he grits his teeth. “There’s no reason, Clark.”
He misses the look of frustration on Clark’s face as he turns back to the city.
…
He’s been so careful. So careful.
Bruce has always known it’ll be a matter of time before Alfred is right, before it all comes crashing down again. But he’s been so damn careful with everything. He’s never let it slip to Clark that he feels more, he’s always put Clark before himself, he’s nearly hollow with how he’s expended himself just to be careful.
It’s only inevitable though, that Bruce screws it all up.
…
It’s typical that it’s the day that Lois Lane comes back.
Bruce first hears news of her return when Alfred appears in his Batcave, only he’s not alone. It surprises Bruce to see Diana accompanying him, especially this early in the morning. If the clock is correct, it’s not yet seven in the morning.
“Master Bruce, have you slept at all?” Alfred asks as he sets down a tray of tea. Diana rivals him with her own unimpressed look, and Bruce ignores them both as he turns back to his shoulder armour. He’s just fixing the details, sewing the last of the new kevlar into the gaps between the material.
“I’ll sleep later, Alfred,” Bruce replies distractedly. “I need to get this finished first-”
“It’s been over twenty-four hours,” Alfred cuts him off. “I must insist.”
Bruce pricks himself, credit to his tiredness, and he drops the offending needle and sticks his finger in his mouth as he turns to glare at the other two. They both look tired as well. There are heavy bags under Alfred’s eyes and Diana looks more pale than usual. It’s not right, but Bruce doesn’t comment.
“I have some news if you’re interested,” Diana pipes up when the glaring contest between Bruce and Alfred is clearly going nowhere. “Although, it might be better for you to have some sleep first. I don’t want to overload you.”
Bruce huffs and turns to the tea. His hand trembles a little as he reaches out to pick up the pot, the lid clattering against the pottery as he pours three shaky cups out. He can see both Alfred and Diana focusing on his jittering, but he knows it’s just muscle stress from doing fine-detailed jobs. It’ll go away soon.
“Fire away,” he mutters as he picks up his tea and relaxes back in his chair. It’s stiff and hard. It makes sense why his back aches.
Diana looks hesitant to do so, but Alfred sighs as he picks up his own mug and pulls over a chair for Diana to sit on. “Be it on his head if he doesn’t take it well,” he says to her as he tucks the chair just under her knees, causing her to sit down. He toasts them both with his mug before he makes his way back towards the stairs. He has the gait of an exhausted man, and Bruce sighs.
“Take your own advice, old man,” he calls, and Alfred flicks him a rude gesture.
He turns back to Diana once he’s watched Alfred safely ascend the steps. He gets worried, not that he would ever tell Alfred that. Meanwhile, Diana has taken her own mug and seems to have tossed back most of it already. Bruce raises his eyebrows at her in question.
“She’s back,” Diana says without preamble. Bruce’s mind is too exhausted to keep up with the proverbial she, and he takes a sip of his tea as he waits for her to continue and explain. She doesn’t though, and Bruce huffs again.
“Who’s back, Di?” he asks. His voice is thick and slow. He probably should be asleep right now, but giving Alfred that satisfaction is not on his list of things to do today.
Diana glares at him. He’s not often on the end of that glare anymore so it takes him aback. “Lois Lane,” she says slowly. “Lois Lane is back. Clark’s meeting her tonight.”
Bruce’s mug hits the floor with a sharp crack, breaking apart and scattering fragments everywhere. Bruce barely hears it though, his ears rushing over the sound as he finds his breath suddenly hard to catch. Diana’s expression changes to one of worry, but he ignores her as he reaches up to press his hand hard against his throbbing chest because it aches.
“So soon?” Bruce manages to get out, each word drawn painfully from his lips.
“Turns out rogue militia groups are surprisingly welcoming towards reporters who are sympathetic,” Diana points out, not harshly. Never harshly.
Bruce doesn’t know what to say. His tongue is in knots and his head is throbbing but it’s not for him. It’s for Clark. Clark, who’s meeting her tonight?
“Does this mean…” Bruce starts to say but he can’t finish, the thought painful. Diana slides forward in her chair and reaches out to hold both of his shoulders.
“I think she does,” Diana confirms so damn gently. “Bruce, I’m sorry.”
Bruce shrugs her off and stands, the shards of mug crunching under his shoes as he steps away. His head is racing too fast, too many thoughts, it’s all overwhelming, and he drops into a crouch and holds his head between his hands, squeezing them until he feels like he might explode.
“Bruce…” Diana says behind him, but Bruce shakes his head and pushes his palms over his ears. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want her meaningless apologies or her empty reassurances. He doesn’t want her near him. He doesn’t want this.
“I’m fine,” he manages to gasp out. “I’m fine, I’m just processing is all.”
It’s the biggest lie he’s ever told, but Diana only hovers behind him for a moment more before she sighs. It’s a deep sigh, full of regret. Bruce thinks it’s wrong for her to be regretful for him.
She leaves at some point. Bruce doesn’t know when exactly. He can’t let go of his head and his legs feel like they’ve seized in his crouch. The world is held a little at bay where he is at the moment, and he stays like that until his legs ache enough that they might give out on him.
Even then, he only stands up and faces the world when his pager goes off, and only then because it’s his ringtone, Clark’s. Bruce crosses to it in a matter of strides and picks it up with hands that are trembling from more than just lack of sleep now.
Hours have gone by, he notices. Most of the day in fact. He looks behind him and sees a tray with a perfectly made sandwich and a stone-cold cup of coffee on it. Alfred’s touch. He never knew he was capable of shutting out the world so much.
That’s a lie. He’s done it one other time. The night of his parent's murder. He doesn’t really want to draw comparisons there.
Clark wants to meet him, heavens know why, and Bruce sends him a shaky message to meet down by the lakeside in a few hours. He needs time to gather himself, to prepare himself for what's coming. No doubt Clark will want to discuss whether he should get back together with Lois or not, and Bruce can’t deny him that. He's supposed to be his friend.
He ignores the pangs in his chest as he heads upstairs.
Hours later, when Bruce is washed and dried and has slammed back at least a hundred coffees, he meets Clark by the lake. He’s the second one there, Clark already leaning against a tree and throwing grapes to clamouring ducks. Bruce pauses to admire him for a second, giving himself this moment, before he pushes forward to stand beside Clark.
They stay in silence for a time, until Clark has thrown the last grape and tucked his hands away in his jacket pockets. It’s that horrid plaid one. Bruce has grown to love it.
“So, you’ve probably heard by now that Lois is back,” Clark starts off, breaking the timid air. Bruce nearly jumps at his voice. “She told Diana before she told me. I can’t decide if that hurts or not.”
Bruce doesn’t say anything, just catches Clark’s gaze and gestures ahead of himself. Clark falls into step beside him as they start to walk around the lake.
“She wants to see me tonight,” Clark continues after walking some time. “I talked to her briefly before coming here and she wants… she wants to get back together.”
The ground is horrible, Bruce’s shoes sinking into the fresh spring mud one moment and stumbling on hard ground the next. It’ll be summer soon, he realises. Almost a year since they buried Clark. He grits his teeth and ignores those thoughts, trying to focus on Clark instead. Alive and whole beside him.
Clark lets out an awkward laugh. “Sorry,” he murmurs, and that catches Bruce’s attention. He looks to see Clark shaking his head as he looks down. “I know you’re not here to be my counsellor. That’s not fair.”
“It’s fine,” Bruce says, his voice gruff and awkward. He hasn’t used it since this morning. It shows.
Clark blinks at him for a moment before his eyes narrow. “What do you think?” he asks, and Bruce feels his shoulders tense. “Do you think I should be with her?” He clucks his tongue and stops walking.
Bruce comes to a halt a few steps ahead of him. He doesn’t turn around instantly, just looks ahead at the trees and the sun for the moment. It’s evening, the sun is starting to cast orange shadows across the sky. Bruce looks at them for as long as he can before he turns to Clark.
“Do what makes you happy,” he says. He wonders just how much he means it but he knows he does. He wants Clark to be happy. Even if it is with Lois Lane.
Clark doesn’t look happy with his answer though. “So you think I should?” he presses, stepping forward and closing the space between them. “You don’t think that… what if she doesn’t make me happy?”
Bruce doesn’t know what to say. Clark’s eyes are intense as he steps ever closer, and it’s like with each step he sucks the air out of the space between them. “You love her, don’t you?” Bruce quickly says, and it falters Clark’s stride. “So you want her to be happy too.” He clenches his jaw and tears his eyes away from Clark. “That’s what love is about, isn’t it? Wanting the other person to be happy.”
He can feel the silence more than hear it. He can’t look at Clark though, just watches the ducks bob on top of the calm water. The sun is reflecting off it just perfectly, causing the water to shine. He focuses on that lest he drowns in his own thoughts.
“It is,” Clark says, and Bruce can hear a sort of realisation to his tone. He closes his eyes briefly and tries to breathe through his own realisation that Clark and Lois… he tries. “You’re right, Bruce,” Clark continues, his voice growing strong. “I can’t believe I’ve been so damn blind.”
Bruce opens his eyes, forces a smile on his face, and turns to Clark. He looks elated, something Bruce isn’t quite expecting, but it’s a good look, a beautiful look on him.
And just for a moment, just a moment, Bruce looks at him, looks at the smile on his face and the twinkle in his eye and the sun is just right, casting an orange glow over Clark’s face and Bruce watches the way he just slightly turns his face up to meet it and it takes Bruce’s breath from him in one fell swoop. He’s stunning, perfect, all that Bruce wants.
He blames his sleep-addled brain and the picturesque moment for him taking two steps forward, cupping Clark’s cheeks, and dragging him down into a chaste kiss.
It’s not explosive. It’s calming and soft and sweet as Bruce pushes their lips together. His thumbs slide over Clark’s cheekbones gently, tracing the beautiful man beneath them, and just when Bruce thinks he could stay like this forever, he pulls away with a small sound.
There’s silence, and Bruce doesn’t want to open eyes just yet. He wants to stay in this moment, stay in this world where Clark is his for as long as he can, but then he feels Clark’s hands sliding onto his wrists and he’s wrenched back to reality with a sickening feeling.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce quickly says, yanking his wrists from Clark’s grip and stepping back to put space between them. He can’t look at Clark, can’t see the betrayal there. He just stares at the mud around their feet and wishes for the ground to swallow him up.
But Clark doesn’t say a word, not a damn word, and Bruce feels like he’s suffocating all of a sudden as he backs away further and further. The silence is stretched too long, the only sound the quacking of the ducks, and Bruce can’t bear it.
Without a word, he runs.
…
“You kissed him,” Diana says, her hand pressed flat to the Batcave door.
Bruce glares at her and tries to close it again. She holds it open effortlessly though, her gaze wide and curious and he can see the pity there. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything she thinks she can give him.
“It was a mistake,” he snaps. He pushes his shoulder into the door and it gives only the littlest of bits. “It was a stupid mistake, Diana.”
She shakes her head, opens her mouth. She means to say something, and Bruce doesn’t want to hear it. He watches her hand and sees her falter for just a moment, her elbow bending as she starts to step forward.
“Bruce,” she starts to say.
He slams the door in her face.
…
Martha rings him.
Bruce wants to ignore the phone call. He’s ignored every single one so far from everyone else, ignored the visitors that Alfred had dutifully sent on their way, he’s ignored everything.
But he can’t ignore her.
“Martha,” he greets gruffly as he answers the phone. His voice is thick and unused. He last spoke to Alfred a day ago when he instructed him to send Barry away.
“Bruce Thomas Wayne,” she snaps, and Bruce winces at her angry tone. He probably should’ve ignored the phone. “What the hell are you doing?”
Bruce doesn’t quite know how to respond. The phone dangles between his fingers as he pulls it away from his ears. He doesn’t know what to say to Martha to appease her. “I’m sorry?” he tries, and she scoffs loudly on the other end.
“You are not,” she mutters. “You need to stop this now. Isolating yourself from everyone is the worst thing you could be doing, especially when Clark is-”
“I don’t want to talk about Clark, Martha.”
“But-”
“I don’t.”
The silence is deafening. Bruce’s hand is so tight around the phone that he can heart the plastic starting to creak. Martha doesn’t even breathe on the other end, and Bruce hangs his head in shame.
“I have to go,” he says. Each word feels awful. “I’ll call you another time.”
He can hear the sound of Martha starting to respond, but he quickly pulls the phone away from his ear and ends the call. It’s soul-destroying to hurt the woman who’s given him so much, but the mention and thought of Clark is worst.
He squares his jaw and glares at his phone before he reels his hand back and throws it across the room. It slams into the wall with a crack, leaving a jagged dent behind before it drops to the ground and splinters everywhere.
…
Inevitably, Clark finds him.
Bruce knows he can’t avoid him forever. He wants to, doesn’t want to ever have to face the repercussions of his actions, but it was always going to happen.
He sees the flash of red and blue one evening. The moon is rising, its glow almost eerie on the rooftops in Gotham. Bruce is perched on some gargoyle, hanging out over the streets when he hears the whistling sound of someone flying past. He feels his shoulders tense, his fists tighten and make his gloves squeak, his brain fires an alarm and his throat starts to tighten.
He has to face Clark. He knows that running isn’t an option this time despite how much his legs are screaming at him to go, to leave, to fire his grapple gun and tear across the rooftops in the other direction. He wants to flee. God, does he want to flee.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks as he rises from his crouch. He hears the sound of Clark’s boots touching down on the rooftop, and he pauses for just a moment before he squares his jaw and turns to look at Clark.
Bruce hates him for a moment. He’s symbolic in his super suit, clearly made for him for how well it fits. There’s one small cowlick artfully curled on his forehead that Bruce wants to mess up just to prove that Clark isn’t as perfect as Bruce thinks he is. He wants to see Clark’s cracks, see the person that Clark hides from the world.
But he already has. He’s already seen what Clark tries to hide the same day that Clark saw every part of Bruce that he’s always tried to ignore. The same day that the ache started in Bruce’s chest. The same day that Doomsday put a hole in Clark’s.
“You’re a hard man to pin down when you want to be,” Clark says. Bruce has almost forgotten his question. “I haven’t even been able to track your heartbeat half the time.”
Bruce thinks of the lead and kryptonite-dust lined suit on the table back in the Batcave. It needs repairs. It’s the only reason he’s not wearing it tonight.
“I didn’t want to be found,” he eventually replies. Clark frowns for just a moment before he sighs and looks away.
“You can’t run forever, Bruce,” he points out. “Eventually, we’ll need to talk.”
“No,” Bruce disagrees, his fists so tight that his knuckles ache. “We don’t.”
Clark let’s out a loud huff before he takes a few steps forward. Bruce automatically steps back, his boots crunching the small bits of debris that litter all Gotham rooftops. Clark stops though, and he shakes his head even though a smile adopts his face.
“You’re infuriating, Bruce Wayne,” he laughs, small and gentle and so confusing. “Maybe that’s what I like about you the most.”
Bruce’s mouth drops open a little. He wasn’t expecting that. He doesn’t actually know what he was expecting but that definitely wasn’t it. Maybe he’s waiting to be let down, a gentle rejection. Maybe he’s hoping for that over the sheer anger and rage he thinks he deserves. It’s wrong to see Clark smiling and laughing when he should be the one putting the space between them, not Bruce.
He doesn’t say a word though as Clark slowly takes more steps forward and closes the distance. He’s still an arms-length away, something that Bruce finds he can deal with, but it looks like Clark wants to get even closer.
“Can I be honest with you, Bruce?” Clark asks. He’s casual, like he’s asking for directions or the time or the weather and it feels so wrong.
“Would it stop you if I said no?” Bruce snipes back. There’s sarcasm laced in his words. He doesn’t know if it’s real.
Clark smiles and cocks his head to the side. “Yes,” he says so simply that it floors Bruce.
He doesn’t know what to do now. He flexes his fingers, letting the blood rush back in them and they ache. He looks away over the skyline and listens as sirens blare in the distance and the flashing lights of police cars flicker in and out as they pass towering buildings.
He thinks about the deep ache that lives in his chest and he wonders if it’s time to just... do something about it.
“Be honest with me then,” he says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth, his throat feels hollow. He can’t bring himself to look at Clark.
But Clark clears his throat and the noise catches Bruce’s eyes for just a moment and he finds himself watching as Clark closes the remaining distance between them and reaches out to grip Bruce’s elbows in his hands.
“I didn’t want you to kiss me the other day,” Clark says. His words feel like a blow and Bruce nearly falls to the ground them. It’s only because of Clark’s grip on him that he doesn’t.
“I’m sor-” he starts to say, the words so painful as his head throbs, but Clark cuts him off.
“But I didn’t want you to stop either,” Clark rushes. His hands tighten on Bruce’s elbows until they nearly hurt. “I didn’t know what to do, Bruce. I had a lot of emotions sitting there and everything got so mixed up.” He sighs and drops his gaze. “I should’ve chased you.”
Bruce blinks stupidly for a moment. He wasn’t expecting that admission.
“I like you, Bruce,” Clark continues. Bruce can’t breathe. “I don’t know when that happened, but it has. I-“
“What about Lois?” Bruce cuts in, his voice barely a whisper. The voice changer on his throat distorts it into something ugly.
Clark sighs and steps away, putting the space back between them again, but he doesn’t let go. “I love her,” Clark says. “I won’t deny that. I saw her after you and we talked but, it’s over. It’s definitely over.”
Bruce shakes his head. “You like me and love her,” he points out. “Shouldn’t your choice be obvious?”
“You,” Clark says firmly. “I choose you.”
“You barely know me.”
Clark laughs abruptly and shakes his head. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. It’s true that there’s more I want to know,” he admits, “but that’s part of the fun. Getting to know you is what I want to do, Bruce. I want to know every part of you.”
Bruce’s chest hurts. It rages, it aches, it feels like it’s on fire and he doesn’t know what to do. Clark’s hands are still on his elbows and Bruce wants to grip him back and push him away all at once.
“Please,” Clark murmurs. “Let this happen, Bruce.”
“I can’t,” Bruce suddenly says, cutting Clark off with his hard voice. He feels like he’s drowning, feels like there are walls around him that are closing in, tightening, suffocating. He can’t breathe because this isn’t right.
This isn't supposed to happen. He's not supposed to get this. He's not supposed to be the one who actually has a happy ever after. He's not supposed to have Clark admit that maybe Bruce’s feelings aren’t one-sided after all. This isn’t how this works, this was never how it was going to work.
“I can’t do this,” Bruce manages to say as he steps back. Clark follows him. Why does he follow him? Bruce pulls his arms out of Clark’s grasp and shakes his head. This isn’t right.
“Bruce?” Clark calls. His hands are hovering over Bruce’s arms and Bruce wants to push them away even further. “Bruce, what can I do?”
“Stop this,” Bruce snaps. “Stop this madness.”
“It’s not-“ Clark starts to argue, but he abruptly cuts himself off. His hands drop to his sides and suddenly Bruce feels like the world isn’t closing in on him anymore. “Okay,” Clark murmurs. “Okay. Time. You need time.”
Bruce needs more than time but he can’t say that. Can’t think past the screaming inside his head.
“I’ll give you time,” Clark says to him. He steps forward, and Bruce squeezes his eyes shut as tight as they can go. “I’m not giving up on you though, Bruce. I won’t.”
Bruce’s entire body tenses as he feels Clark’s lips on his forehead all of a sudden. He can’t describe how he feels, a burning running through his body all at once as he feels ice in his veins. It’s too much, not enough, all at once.
“When you’re ready, let me know,” Clark murmurs against his skin, his lips brushing against Bruce’s forehead and sending Bruce into even more of a spin.
Clark pulls away, taking off into the air without missing a beat, and Bruce grips his arms hard as he tries to think, feel, breathe.
…
Eventually, spring gives way to summer.
It’s been weeks since Bruce saw Clark on the rooftops. He should be thinking about it more, but Bruce doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to open the monster sitting in his chest and let it out. He just wants to hide it all away and pretend that the world doesn’t continue to move around him.
He’s sitting on the steps leading up to the front door of the lake-house one day. Beside him is a small gathering of stones, most of which have been smuggled onto the doorstep through the cracks in the soles of peoples shoes. Bruce throws each one and listens to them thwacking against the others on the driveway, finding it surprisingly soothing.
Alfred sits beside him with an old kit of polishing equipment on the step below and an old pair of shoes in his hand. He hasn’t said a word since he joined Bruce a while ago now, just sits in companionable silence as Bruce throws his stones and tries not to think.
Bruce knows that Alfred is waiting for him to talk first. He wouldn’t be out here if he wasn’t anticipating a conversation. Alfred does everything on purpose. There are never any mistakes with him.
But Bruce doesn’t know what to say. There are no words for how he’s feeling, nothing that he can say that won’t make the panic he’s holding at bay swell up and swallow him whole. There’s nothing, and Bruce hates that more than anything. Hates the lack of control, hates this.
His chest aches. He wonders if it’ll ever go away.
“What happened to her?” Bruce finally asks, breaking the fragile silence. “The woman that you loved.”
Alfred doesn’t answer him straight away. He continues polishing the shoes with brisk and even swipes of his cloth. Bruce doesn’t pressure him as he continues to throw his collection of stones away, and he waits patiently until Alfred sighs and turns to look at him.
“She died,” Alfred says. Bruce was expecting that. “A car crash, right before I entered your father’s service.”
Bruce nods slowly. He throws another pebble. It bounces off the car parked just out of reach and lands in the stones beside its front wheel.
“We were young,” Alfred continues after a moments pause. “I was with her when she passed. They managed to get her to the hospital but she died from internal injuries.” He sighs and drops the shoe onto the step beneath him. “It’s not like how they show it in the movies. There’s no time to really say goodbye.”
Bruce thinks of Doomsday, of Clark crumbling to the ground, of his empty eyes and the hole in his chest. No, he thinks. It’s not like the movies at all.
“You never found someone else?” Bruce asks hesitantly. He doesn’t know if that question is insensitive or not, but Alfred looks at him with the smallest of smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. It reminds Bruce of Martha’s smiles after Clark died.
“There could never be anyone else,” Alfred tells him honestly. “She was the love of my life, Bruce.” He shrugs and picks up the shoe again. “Who knows. Maybe if I’d tried there could’ve been someone, but I never wanted to. I never wanted to try.”
“Why?”
Alfred huffs. He starts polishing with a hand that’s too tightly clenched around the rag. “Because no one could ever replace her,” he answers. “No one could hold a shine to her. She was perfect and she fit me just right. There were no chances of ever finding someone like her again.” He pauses shining for a moment and shakes his head. “In any case, not long after that I was employed by your father, and not long after that, your parents passed.” His gaze is hard as he looks at Bruce. “You became my priority.”
Bruce nods slowly. “I’m sorry,” he starts to say, hanging his head. “I never meant-”
“I don’t regret a thing, Bruce,” Alfred cuts him off. He reaches over and thwacks Bruce’s knee with the sole of the shoe. “I’m happy where I am. If someone had told me a long time ago that I would spend the rest of my life looking after Bruce Wayne, I wouldn’t have believed them.” He claps a hand on Bruce’s shoulder and gives him a slight shake. “But I’m proud of who you are, and I’m proud of what I’ve done to help you become who you are.”
Bruce can’t swallow past the thickness in his throat. He feels a little like he’s suffocating, and he clears his throat as he tries to blink away the wetness in his eyes. Alfred isn’t this honest that often, and he’s never this complimentary. Knowing that this is how Alfred really thinks of him is, frankly, overwhelming.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bruce finally admits. His voice is small. He hates that.
Alfred hums beside him as he polishes away. He doesn’t respond straight off, just stays quiet as Bruce tries to pull himself together. It’s unseemly to be this way, and it’s certainly not okay to show this much weakness. He resorts back to tossing small stones, trying to funnel his emotions into each throw.
“You know,” Alfred pipes up, “it’s been a year since Clark Kent died, and I’ve never heard about what you want.”
Bruce looks at him in surprise, halting his next throw. Alfred doesn’t look back though as he moves on to the second shoe. The first one reflects the light with how well it’s shined, and Bruce stares at it as he waits for Alfred to continue.
“Even before Clark died, I didn’t hear that either.” Alfred sighs and adds more polish to his rag. “It’s always been about Gotham. Gotham, or the team, or Martha Kent, or Ms Prince, or Wayne Enterprises, or me, or everyone else but yourself.” He glances up at locks Bruce with a tense gaze. “And it’s always, always been about Clark Kent.”
“I…” Bruce starts to say, wondering if he should defend himself. But Alfred waves his words away with a hand.
“It has been,” he pushes. “It’s been about Clark Kent since the moment the man died. Everything you’ve done has been about him or for him.” Alfred lets out a short laugh. “I never thought that you would fall in love, Master Bruce, but I’ll be damned if you didn’t fall.”
“I don’t think I’ve stopped,” Bruce admits softly.
Alfred huffs. “No, I don’t think you have.”
He looks down at the shoe and rag in his hands before he sighs and places them on the ground. Bruce watches as Alfred turns to face him, and Bruce gives him the same treatment. He drops the stones in his hands, all of them clattering on top of the concrete and bouncing everywhere as he looks at Alfred.
“Everything you do, you do for him,” Alfred says, his voice gentle and soothing to Bruce’s nerves. “Even now as you stand to reject him, you’re doing it for him.”
“He loves Lois,” Bruce states simply. “I can’t stand in front of that.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can,” Alfred mutters. He doesn’t look like he’s agreeing with Bruce though as he shifts and starts again. “But I do believe, Master Bruce, that just this once you should stop thinking about what you think he wants or what he actually wants and maybe, just maybe, you should start thinking about what you want.”
Bruce’s mouth stays open but nothing comes out. He blinks stupidly at Alfred for a moment before he breaks their eye contact and stares at his lap. What he wants? What does he want? Bruce hasn’t thought about his own wants and needs for longer than brief moments for so long. What is there to want? What can he have that he also wants?
His head hurts and he realises he’s absentmindedly rubbing at his chest, trying to soothe away the ache there. He stops and glances down at his hand before he slowly tightens it into a fist.
He’s surprised when Alfred’s old hand reaches out and covers it, pushing his fist slightly into his chest. “Maybe the ache in your chest isn’t just because of nightmares, Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “Maybe there’s an ache in your heart that you need to address.”
Bruce bites the inside of his cheek until Alfred drops his hand, and he lets out a trembly breath as he shakes his head. “How can I be with him after all that I’ve done, Alfred?” he asks.
Alfred shrugs. “The same way he can be with you after all he’s done,” he says. “This isn’t a competition over who’s wronged the other more, nor is it the place for you to keep punishing yourself, Master Bruce.” He huffs again before he reaches back for his unfinished shoe. “Stop wallowing.”
Bruce lets out a small reluctant laugh as he drops his hand away from his chest. “I’ll try,” he says, and Alfred lets out a snort of a laugh himself. Bruce looks away, out over the driveway to the trees lining his property. Just beyond them is the lake and he thinks of Clark in the beautiful sunset, the kiss they shared, and he thinks of Clark’s fearlessness on the rooftops as he told Bruce what he feels and Bruce had run. He’d run and run and Bruce thinks that maybe he’s tired of running.
“This is going to be hell,” Bruce mutters to himself, and Alfred laughs.
“Unfortunately, love does kick you in the ass,” he points out. He reaches over and shoves Bruce hard enough to almost send him sprawling into the stony driveway. “But it’s about time something does.”
…
It’s sunny, the day that Bruce finally says what he needs to say.
He finds Clark on the Kent farm. He’d called Martha earlier in an attempt to apologise, but she’d simply scolded him and told him to get a move on with things and that Clark was here whenever Bruce was damn well ready. She’d hung up without a goodbye and Bruce gets the impression she’s forgiven him but is definitely still not impressed.
He doesn’t quite know how he managed to live without Martha Kent in his life before.
He pulls up in the shiny sedan that Alfred had parked on the plane for him to use. It’d taken him a surprising amount of time to finally convince himself to get in the car on the dusty airstrip in Smallville. Bruce has never thought he was the type to get nervous. Yet, here he is.
Clark’s sitting on the fence just across the backyard. He’s got his back to Bruce, but there’s no doubt that he knows Bruce is there. He’s busy watching the horses prance around the paddock, and Bruce catches sight of the two newborn foals frolicking together.
“I was starting to think I wasn’t going to hear from you,” Clark says the moment Bruce steps up to lean against the fence beside him. He doesn’t look down and Bruce doesn’t look up.
“So did I,” Bruce admits quietly. He hears Clark’s breathing hitch at his words. He doesn’t try to fix that though as his heart sits in his throat. He doesn’t quite know what to say.
Clark shifts where he sits, throws his legs back over the fence and swivels on top. Bruce’s shoulders are level with Clark’s midriff, and he takes a deep breath before he turns to look up at Clark, only to see him looking back.
“But you’re here,” Clark points out uncertainly, and Bruce nods.
“I’m here.”
Clark shakes his head as a small smile creeps on his face. “You just gonna stand there?” he asks. “Or have you got something to say?”
Bruce drops his head to hide his smile. “I can’t quite figure out what to say,” he concedes. He really doesn’t. Maybe he should’ve practiced a speech before leaving Gotham, but even then he knows he wouldn’t know what to say. He thinks that maybe he should listen to his heart, but that’s a bigger mess than he even wants to acknowledge.
Clark hums but doesn’t say anything, Bruce is thankful for that. He looks up again but keeps his gaze out over the paddocks. The foals look back, and Bruce wonders if they remember him sneaking them apples only weeks ago. Martha had scolded him for doing that, but there’d been no heat in her tone.
Sooner or later, he’s going to have to speak. He tightens his hands into fists a few times before he lets out a large exhale of breath, rubs his chest to fight the ache, then steps back from the fence.
“I don’t know what to say,” he repeats himself. “I’ve never really been a person who’s honest about how I feel, and I’ve definitely never been the person who’ll admit to those feelings when they’re there.” He glances up at Clark to see him watching Bruce with an impassive look.
“I know,” he says simply.
Bruce huffs and shakes his head. He crams his hands into the pockets of his jacket and kicks at the grass with the toe of his boots. “You died, Clark,” he murmurs, his voice dipping with the admission. “You died right in front of me, and no matter what you say, it was my fault.”
“Not all of it.”
“No,” Bruce hesitantly agrees. “Not all of it.” He lets out a shaky breath before he continues. “I watched you get buried. I don’t know what I felt then, Clark, but it was something.” With trembling fingers, he reaches up and places a hand on his chest. “Since then…. I’ve felt you here the whole time. I felt you like a damn ache for so long that I don’t… I don’t know what it’s like when it doesn’t hurt.”
He jumps when Clark reaches out and places a hand over Bruce’s. It’s big and warm and Bruce has a sudden surge of courage as he flips his hand around and links their fingers. It clearly surprises Clark as his own remain slack for a moment before he squeezes Bruce’s hand tightly.
“You’ve been a part of everything I’ve done since the moment you died,” Bruce continues. He wants to stop, wants to curl up and pretend like this hasn’t happened. But then Clark gives his hand a tug and Bruce takes a few steps closer until Clark’s left knee is pressing into his stomach. “And somewhere along the way,” he breathes, trying to keep it together, “I think I fell in love with you.”
“You think?” Clark asks, and Bruce can’t help but smile.
“I know,” he reaffirms. “I’m in love with you, Clark. Whatever the hell that means.”
Clark laughs, and Bruce goes along with it when Clark tugs him closer and closer until Bruce is slotting in between his legs. Clark’s other hand slips along to Bruce’s neck and tilts his chin up and Bruce glances up to see Clark looking straight back down at him.
Bruce isn’t an expert on expressions, but he’s almost sure that the twinkle in Clark’s eye is definitely love.
“I think that means,” Clark starts to say as he trails his hand up to cup Bruce’s cheek, “that you’re allowed to be happy now, Bruce. You can be happy, and I want you to be happy.”
“You think you can love me too?” Bruce breathes, and Clark laughs again and it’s a beautiful sound.
“I’m well on my way to be completely and utterly head over heels for you, Bruce,” Clark declares. He leans down and presses their foreheads together. “You’re who I want and who I will love.” He grins, and it’s blinding.
Bruce can’t breathe in the space between them for a moment, but he decides it doesn’t matter as he lets go of Clark’s hand and wraps his arm around Clark’s neck before hauling him in for a kiss. Clark lets out a muted noise but his hand slides into Bruce’s hair and angles Bruce’s face up to deepen it further.
It’s intoxicating and overwhelming, and Bruce wants more and more as Clark pulls him closer. He can’t think of anything else but the sheer affection and passion that’s flowing through him as they kiss, and they only break away when Bruce feels his chest sudden soften.
It’s gone, he realises as he pulls back, breathing heavily. The ache in his chest. It’s gone. Instead, there’s a soothing warmth, and Bruce reaches up to press his hand to it with a wonder he’s never felt before.
“Bruce?” Clark calls, and Bruce lets himself grin and be happy for once as he reels Clark in for another kiss.
…