FIC: 36 View of Mt. Fuji: Spring (9/9)
Title: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji: Spring (9/9)
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is a series set early in Batman and Superman's careers, shortly after the S/B annual #1. The full series can be found here.
Rating: R
Summary: Clark comes to Wayne Manor to eat dinner, see the Batcave, chat with Dick about costume design, and borrow Bruce's pajamas.
Word Count: 3600
My longing for you--
too strong to keep within bounds.
At least no one can blame me
when I go to you at night
along the road of dreams.
--Ono no Komachi
The air pressure shifted again as the WayneCorp private jet started its descent into Gotham. Bruce Wayne was looking out the window. Watching his satisfied smirk, Clark Kent couldn't help but smile as well. "Good to be home?"
Bruce sighed, a sigh so full of longing for his city that Clark felt his heart turn over. "Oh, yes."
The flight had been an uneventful one. Clark had read a stack of newspapers and Bruce had slept. Or, to be more accurate, Clark had used his x-ray vision to peek through the newspaper in front of his face and watch Bruce sleeping. When he was asleep, Bruce's face relaxed somewhat, making him look much younger than he was. Long eyelashes shadowed his cheeks, and his mouth was slightly lax. Clark spent an hour watching the faintest flutter of those eyelashes, another hour memorizing the exact curve of the lips. Then he closed his eyes and focused on the heartbeat, the breathing of the man across from him, soothing and steady. He shouldn't indulge this infatuation, he knew he shouldn't. Listening to the blood moving through Bruce's body, the air in his mouth, in his chest, all the subtle motions of life. Infatuation.
The flight seemed surprisingly quick.
After the landing, passport-checking, and form-submitting, the two made their way to the waiting car. Dick was leaning against the limousine, reading a book. His eyes lit up at the sight of them. "Bruce! You didn't tell me Clark was coming!" He dropped the book onto the hood of the car and tossed himself into Bruce's arms with a mix of acrobat's grace and boy's clumsiness. Clark noticed that Bruce's returning hug wasn't quite as stiff and awkward as it had been the last time Dick met them at the airport. Dick stepped away from Bruce and grinned shyly at Clark, who stepped forward to wrap the boy up in a hug as well.
"I wanted to surprise you," Bruce said easily to Dick as they climbed into the car.
"Did you know about this, Alfred?" demanded Dick.
The driver of the car just chuckled as he pulled away from the airport. "Nice to see you again, sir," he said to Clark, moving deftly into traffic.
"I'm...happy to be here," said Clark, feeling suddenly rather shy. He had missed the relaxed interactions in Gotham more than he had let himself realize, apparently. He listened to Dick chatter about the week Bruce had missed, watched Bruce nodding and prompting him. It was more than a polite phrase, he realized: he was happy to be here.
He tried not to think about it too much.
: : :
Bruce sipped the last of his coffee as Dick finished scraping the last bits of ice cream from his bowl. Clark was tempted to join Dick in his thoroughness, but refrained. "Well, Dick," said Bruce, "Clark has said he'd like to see the cave."
Dick almost dropped his spoon. "Really?" His grin was blinding. "Clark, it's the most awesome place! Wait until you see the computer, and there are all these bats flying around all the time...it's the coolest place in the world." Then he did drop the spoon with a clatter into the bowl as a thought occurred to him. "And I can show you my costume designs! I've got them all down there." He jumped to his feet and grabbed Clark's hand, tugging. "Let's go now!"
Clark looked at Bruce for approval, and when the other man nodded he let himself be led to the den, with the ancient grandfather clock he had seen there last visit. Dick fiddled with the clock a bit, and it swung open onto a dark stairway winding down. "Told you it was cool," he said at Clark's appreciative whistle.
"It's like a Hardy Boys book," Clark said, ignoring the Bruce's snicker behind him.
The stair wound down, broadening and opening up at last into a surprisingly vast cave. Among the cavernous roof Clark could hear the chittering and fluttering of numberless bats.
"Clark, Clark, check this out!" Dick called, running to a set of gymnastics equipment: pommel horse, high bar, and rings. He pulled himself up quickly on the rings into an Iron Cross position, holding it for a while before letting go, wincing a little.
"Impressive," said Clark sincerely.
"I can't hold it anywhere near as long as Bruce can," Dick said, stretching his shoulders carefully. "He says it's natural I can't, I don't have the upper body strength yet. But I will someday!"
The image Dick's words called up hit Clark hard enough to feel like a blow: Bruce in a white tank top, working out on the pommel horse or the high bar, that lithe body graceful, gleaming with sweat...no heavy body armor to distract or hinder...
He realized Bruce was talking to him and snapped his attention to where the other man was gesturing. A bank of computers, screens flickering, a large womb-like chair in front of them. Dick pounced onto the chair as Bruce explained the capabilities of the system, sending it whipping around in dizzy circles, his voice Dopplering as he spun. "It's really, really--fast but--Bruce won't--let me play--computer games--on it."
"It's not a toy, Dick," Bruce said gravely, but made no move to stop the boy from spinning in his chair.
Dick brought the chair to an abrupt halt, grinning. "You sure?" he said cheekily, then scampered over to a cabinet, banging drawers.
"I hope you can design a system like this for the League, Bruce," Clark said.
"Mmm. I suppose now that I've officially been roped into it I can maybe start to think about--"
Dick's voice interrupted Bruce. "--Hey! He's going to join that Justice League?" he asked Clark, his eyes shining.
"I seem to have convinced him of the necessity," Clark said dryly.
"Awesome." Dick whisked a handful of rolls of blueprints from the cabinets. "He's been working on these for ages! Wait until you see them!"
Bruce made an alarmed noise as Dick unrolled the blueprints: dozens of possible schemata for a space station, diagrams of potential security systems, an elaborate circuitry design for a computer system.
"You can maybe start to think about it, Bruce?" said Clark.
"Well," said Bruce. He coughed into his hand briefly. "They didn't take that long to make, really."
Clark shuffled through the piles of painstakingly meticulous blueprints. "I like this one," he said, lifting one of the station designs up.
Bruce snorted. "That one? That's crap, that's the first one I made. No, no, this is the one," he announced, snatching a blueprint up unerringly. "Look at this." He held it up for Clark to admire. "This one's elegant, pragmatic--look at the placement of the observation deck. And it's outfitted for much better fuel economy."
"It's probably a lot more expensive that the other one."
Dark blue eyes nearly snapped sparks. "Now is not the time to get chintzy, Clark. The Justice League is not going to operate out of some cut-rate ramshackle satellite. What kind of symbol of Justice cuts corners? No," he said, slapping the blueprint down on the table with finality, "I am not going to let you do a half-assed job on this."
Fortunately, Clark was saved from having to respond by Dick spilling a pile of paper on the table next to the schemata. Clark blinked at an assortment of costumes in colored crayon. "They're very...bright, Richard," he said carefully. Beside him Bruce rolled his eyes very slightly.
"They're all kind of based on my circus costume," Dick explained, pulling out a costume of combined gold, magenta, orange and...were those feathers? "I want to be Flamebird! From your story!"
"That's...wonderful!" said Clark cheerfully. "But you know, 'Flamebird' doesn't really go with 'Bat,' when you think about it. Bats are real and Flamebirds are mythical."
"That's true," Dick mused. "But I want to be something bright and happy. And Mom always called me her little Dickie bird." His eyes were sad.
"There are lots of cheerful real birds out there too. And some of these other costumes look great. You probably don't need the real feathers, though," Clark suggested.
Dick eyed one of the pictures critically. "You might be right. Sequins might be better."
Bruce made a small sound of despair, too low for the boy to catch, but Clark shot him a laughing look. Bruce would probably keep Dick off the streets as long as possible merely to keep from having to make him the costume.
: : :
"Those are what you wear to sleep in?" Bruce said indignantly as Clark emerged from the upstairs bathroom, toothbrush in hand.
Clark looked down at his ragged and worn gray sweatsuit. "What's wrong with my sleepwear, Bruce?"
Bruce tsked at him. "You're hopeless, Clark. There's no reason to maintain that schlub facade even while you sleep."
"It's not entirely a facade," Clark muttered sullenly, but Bruce was not to be deterred.
"There is absolutely no reason not to look your best, even in repose."
"You sound like a GQ article," Clark said, sounding amused. "These are comfortable."
Bruce crossed his arms and glowered. Then he reached out and dragged Clark across the hall and into his room. "Whoa," said Clark a bit nervously, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Bruce rummaged through a dresser drawer and came up with a pair of midnight-blue silk pajamas. He tossed them at Clark, who caught them by reflex. Clark stared at him, then down at the handful of sapphire-colored silk. Then back at him.
Bruce pointed to an ornate changing screen in the corner of the room. "Put them on." Clark shrugged, bewildered, and disappeared behind the screen.
The rustling of cotton and silk behind the screen caught at Bruce. He didn't even exactly know why he was being so perverse about Clark's sleeping fashion choices.
Well, yes he did. He wanted to see Clark in something flattering. Something Bruce had picked out for him.
Something that belonged to Bruce.
Clark's voice from behind the screen: "It's a little tight in the chest, Bruce."
"Well, leave it unbuttoned," Bruce said lightly. He dropped into the armchair in the opposite corner and waited until Clark emerged wearing the dark blue pajamas. "Nice," said Bruce, his voice careless. "That's a bit more like it." He looked away, out the window. It wasn't hard to take his eyes away from Clark at all, because he could see it it wherever he looked now: The silk clinging to Clark's legs like water, the shirt open to reveal corded muscle, taut skin. He almost needed to rub at his eyes now before he could manage to see anything else.
"Thanks for the makeover," Clark said, sounding rather uncomfortable. Of course, he had just found out Bruce was attracted to men yesterday; he was probably worried that Bruce was coming on to him.
Admittedly, Bruce wished he could. Of course, that made it all the more imperative he not show it. They had to work together, after all, and if Superman was wondering if Batman was checking out his ass it might...strain their working relationship. Their friendship.
Bruce realized with a sudden pang that his friendship with Clark had somehow, somewhere, become too important to risk with a little flirtatious banter. Stupid Bat, let your guard down and end up immediately falling for your best friend. Your straight best friend. He let that annoyance trickle into his voice just enough to keep it cool and somewhat distant as he stood up. "Well, I'm going downstairs to get a little work done before bed. I don't really want Batman to be seen on the streets the same night Bruce gets back in town, but that doesn't mean I can't get a lot done."
Clark shifted awkwardly, running a fold of the dangling pajama top between his fingers. "Okay. I guess I'll catch a little sleep. Maybe I'll patrol Metropolis for a bit in the early morning."
"Just make sure you're back for breakfast at seven, or both Alfred and Dick will have my head for letting you go."
Clark chuckled at the doorway. "I don't intend to miss Alfred's breakfast." He paused. "Good night, Bruce."
"Night, Clark." Once the Kryptonian was gone, Bruce put on his own pajamas and a warm robe and headed down to the computer banks. He pored over the police reports for the last few days, ran a few simulations.
Then he remembered the Kryptonian cloth tucked into his uniform's belt.
He pulled out the tiny square and unfolded it, marveling at how the fabric collapsed into something so small. It wasn't even like it was thin: no, it had a deep, velvety texture and was heavy, luxurious.
He ran a scanner across it quickly and sat down in the womb chair to watch and sort the results, the cape still in his hands, warm and comforting. The analyses--tensile strength, chemical composition, light refraction--scrolled in front of his eyes. Cloth on his palms. It felt slightly different on his palms than on the back of his hands. Velvet and brocade, silk and something more slippery than silk, all at once. Warm. Crimson warmth.
He realized abruptly that he'd been staring at the same report for about ten minutes, just running the cape through his hands almost mindlessly. Did it have a scent, he wondered abruptly? He bundled a handful up and put it to his face. Checking for aromatic qualities, he thought a bit muzzily. An important part of cloth analysis.
It was warm on his cheek, soft and yielding. A faint scent of something completely uncategorizable, somewhere between flowers and spices. Was that the scent of the cloth, or of Clark? He buried his face in crimson slickness and inhaled deeply, feeling velvet warmth on his lips. The image of Clark in midnight blue silk rose up again in his mind's eye. Bruce felt his breath move the scarlet cloth in front of his face.
He pulled it down and tried to focus. This level of distraction was...unexpected. He was willing to accept that he...cared for Clark, but the demands of dealing with Matsunaga, with Chiaki and the conference, with his memories of Seio, had kept his body from catching up to his heart.
It seemed to have caught up now. Bruce grimaced to find that he was still stroking the cape, the sharp-rich texture of it beneath his hands like flame. It felt warm to his palms, cooler and smoother to the back of his hands. He wondered if the texture would feel different to other parts of his body.
He shivered.
Bruce stood up, annoyed, tossed the cape across the chair, and went to grab some tools to use on it. Unlikely that anything could possibly damage its pristine perfection, but it was important to try. He turned back and stood for a long time in front of the womb chair. The cape was draped across the black leather of the chair sinuously, light glowing and glinting off it in different places, shadows nestled into its folds.
Midnight blue silk up against Clark's body. Perfect skin wrapped in Bruce's garments. The voluptuous echo of alien cloth on the skin of his hands, tingling and warm.
Bruce swallowed.
He undid the sash of his robe.
: : :
The Manor sheets turned out to be a disappointing navy-blue cotton. At least the guest room sheets were. Perhaps the main bedroom's sheets were purple satin? Or...Clark had heard of leather sheets, and could rather imagine Bruce's perverse sense of humor prompting him to deck his bed out in his signature material. He resisted the temptation to check with x-ray vision. That would be rude.
Or perhaps he just didn't want to be disappointed again.
Clark slid between the long-awaited sheets with a sigh. They were, of course, extremely high-quality cotton sheets, whisper-soft to the touch. The silk pajamas shifted around his body as he pulled them up. He wondered if Bruce wore these particular pajamas often.
He tried to stop thinking about that.
It was a silly, physical crush. Nothing more. He just had to...stop dwelling on it and the urge would go away. Clark rolled over. Then he rolled over again. He stared at the ceiling, which had some crazy detailwork on it, flowers and leaves in the plaster. He counted the leaves for a while. He couldn't sleep. It figured.
The Manor was silent, a deep, thick silence that Clark never heard in Metropolis, in his little apartment facing the highway. He closed his eyes. He needed to focus on something to relax himself.
Deep below the Manor, he heard Bruce's heartbeat.
Almost without meaning to, he narrowed his hearing in on it, on Bruce's heart and the sound of his breathing, as he had on the airplane. It took a moment to focus so intently, to make only those two sounds echo in his ears, but he managed it. He didn't want to hear the clicking keys of the computer, didn't want to hear the squeak of the chair as Bruce turned. Just his heart. Just his breath. That wasn't eavesdropping...so much. He wouldn't hear any secrets that way unless Bruce talked aloud to himself, and Clark doubted he did. Clark would just stop listening if he started talking.
He lay in bed, nestled in silk and cotton, the steady, calm thrum of Bruce's blood in his ears, the low, even whistle of his breath in his mind. It was soothing, he thought sleepily. It would be pleasant to sleep this way, surrounded by just those two sounds.
Bruce's heartbeat suddenly jumped.
It settled into a slightly faster rate, and Clark heard the other man take a long, almost shaky breath. The heartbeat spiked again, slowing down very gradually. Then it started to accelerate at a very slow rate.
Clark remembered the exercise equipment, imagined Bruce in workout gear, turning from the computer to the pommel horse, his hands steady and sure, his legs scissoring the air like wings. Shadows in his dark hair, eyes closed, lost in the rhythm of the workout. Floating. Clark could see the lines of his body as he moved. Bruce's heartbeat was in his ears, intimate. He should probably stop listening, but he couldn't seem to remember how, half-asleep, dreamily imagining Bruce starting to sweat slightly, the sheen of dampness cool on his skin in the underground air. It would taste like salt. Clark licked his lips.
Bruce's breathing was slightly ragged. Perhaps he was on the rings now, powerful arms holding himself still for so much longer than any other human could bear. A thin white t-shirt, maybe, clinging against chiseled muscles by now. He shouldn't be listening. Bruce's pulse in his ears, through his body. Speeding up so slowly. Clark realized dimly that the silk on him was unbearably cloying, soft...he felt his hands on himself, pulling down the pajama bottoms almost despite himself. Bruce made a small, breathy sound, a very faint "oh." Clark imagined corded muscles tense on the rings, frozen, holding steady, stiff with anticipation...
Clark wasn't going to do this. He wasn't. The sheets--
Another breath from Bruce: sharp, almost surprised, fading into throttled huskiness.
Clark scrabbled for tissues at the side of the bed.
Maybe he was on that high bar, his long body soaring, controlled falling. Bruce's heartbeat in Clark's ears was hammering now, the other man's breaths harsh and deep. Clark was moving with those breaths, moving closer. Closer. He saw Bruce falling. Clark wanted to catch him. Wanted to hold him. Tell him it was all right, he'd never let anyone hurt him so again. The look in his eyes when he spoke of Seio. Clark couldn't bear it. Wanted him to look at Clark that way. With those incredible eyes, sad under all the cynicism. Lust spiked through him, and something else, something he didn't want to look at, something dangerous and frightening. No, no, he thought, alarmed, Stop now, stop it, don't let yourself--
Far away in the cave, Bruce's breath caught, gasping, nearly a sob, and his heartbeat stuttered frantically. The break in the rhythm snapped some line of tension drawn through Clark's body and he felt himself twist wildly in the bed, against his hands, stammering out the words he had tried to keep from saying, the emotions he had tried to keep from feeling. He said them. He felt them.
No turning back now.
: : :
In the cave, Bruce Wayne was curled up in the womb chair, wrapped in scarlet cape. His shudders faded away slowly, the muscles in his body going lax, soothed. He pulled the cape closer, feeling its warmth touching him, caressing. Comforting.
He slipped into sleep with that protection around him and for once had no nightmares at all.
In his bed on the third floor, Clark Kent pried dazed eyes open to look at the ceiling, not really seeing its rococo details. Not just lust at all. And it wasn't going away. The air was very quiet, the night very warm.
It was still only spring, but it felt for a moment almost as hot as summer.
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is a series set early in Batman and Superman's careers, shortly after the S/B annual #1. The full series can be found here.
Rating: R
Summary: Clark comes to Wayne Manor to eat dinner, see the Batcave, chat with Dick about costume design, and borrow Bruce's pajamas.
Word Count: 3600
My longing for you--
too strong to keep within bounds.
At least no one can blame me
when I go to you at night
along the road of dreams.
--Ono no Komachi
The air pressure shifted again as the WayneCorp private jet started its descent into Gotham. Bruce Wayne was looking out the window. Watching his satisfied smirk, Clark Kent couldn't help but smile as well. "Good to be home?"
Bruce sighed, a sigh so full of longing for his city that Clark felt his heart turn over. "Oh, yes."
The flight had been an uneventful one. Clark had read a stack of newspapers and Bruce had slept. Or, to be more accurate, Clark had used his x-ray vision to peek through the newspaper in front of his face and watch Bruce sleeping. When he was asleep, Bruce's face relaxed somewhat, making him look much younger than he was. Long eyelashes shadowed his cheeks, and his mouth was slightly lax. Clark spent an hour watching the faintest flutter of those eyelashes, another hour memorizing the exact curve of the lips. Then he closed his eyes and focused on the heartbeat, the breathing of the man across from him, soothing and steady. He shouldn't indulge this infatuation, he knew he shouldn't. Listening to the blood moving through Bruce's body, the air in his mouth, in his chest, all the subtle motions of life. Infatuation.
The flight seemed surprisingly quick.
After the landing, passport-checking, and form-submitting, the two made their way to the waiting car. Dick was leaning against the limousine, reading a book. His eyes lit up at the sight of them. "Bruce! You didn't tell me Clark was coming!" He dropped the book onto the hood of the car and tossed himself into Bruce's arms with a mix of acrobat's grace and boy's clumsiness. Clark noticed that Bruce's returning hug wasn't quite as stiff and awkward as it had been the last time Dick met them at the airport. Dick stepped away from Bruce and grinned shyly at Clark, who stepped forward to wrap the boy up in a hug as well.
"I wanted to surprise you," Bruce said easily to Dick as they climbed into the car.
"Did you know about this, Alfred?" demanded Dick.
The driver of the car just chuckled as he pulled away from the airport. "Nice to see you again, sir," he said to Clark, moving deftly into traffic.
"I'm...happy to be here," said Clark, feeling suddenly rather shy. He had missed the relaxed interactions in Gotham more than he had let himself realize, apparently. He listened to Dick chatter about the week Bruce had missed, watched Bruce nodding and prompting him. It was more than a polite phrase, he realized: he was happy to be here.
He tried not to think about it too much.
: : :
Bruce sipped the last of his coffee as Dick finished scraping the last bits of ice cream from his bowl. Clark was tempted to join Dick in his thoroughness, but refrained. "Well, Dick," said Bruce, "Clark has said he'd like to see the cave."
Dick almost dropped his spoon. "Really?" His grin was blinding. "Clark, it's the most awesome place! Wait until you see the computer, and there are all these bats flying around all the time...it's the coolest place in the world." Then he did drop the spoon with a clatter into the bowl as a thought occurred to him. "And I can show you my costume designs! I've got them all down there." He jumped to his feet and grabbed Clark's hand, tugging. "Let's go now!"
Clark looked at Bruce for approval, and when the other man nodded he let himself be led to the den, with the ancient grandfather clock he had seen there last visit. Dick fiddled with the clock a bit, and it swung open onto a dark stairway winding down. "Told you it was cool," he said at Clark's appreciative whistle.
"It's like a Hardy Boys book," Clark said, ignoring the Bruce's snicker behind him.
The stair wound down, broadening and opening up at last into a surprisingly vast cave. Among the cavernous roof Clark could hear the chittering and fluttering of numberless bats.
"Clark, Clark, check this out!" Dick called, running to a set of gymnastics equipment: pommel horse, high bar, and rings. He pulled himself up quickly on the rings into an Iron Cross position, holding it for a while before letting go, wincing a little.
"Impressive," said Clark sincerely.
"I can't hold it anywhere near as long as Bruce can," Dick said, stretching his shoulders carefully. "He says it's natural I can't, I don't have the upper body strength yet. But I will someday!"
The image Dick's words called up hit Clark hard enough to feel like a blow: Bruce in a white tank top, working out on the pommel horse or the high bar, that lithe body graceful, gleaming with sweat...no heavy body armor to distract or hinder...
He realized Bruce was talking to him and snapped his attention to where the other man was gesturing. A bank of computers, screens flickering, a large womb-like chair in front of them. Dick pounced onto the chair as Bruce explained the capabilities of the system, sending it whipping around in dizzy circles, his voice Dopplering as he spun. "It's really, really--fast but--Bruce won't--let me play--computer games--on it."
"It's not a toy, Dick," Bruce said gravely, but made no move to stop the boy from spinning in his chair.
Dick brought the chair to an abrupt halt, grinning. "You sure?" he said cheekily, then scampered over to a cabinet, banging drawers.
"I hope you can design a system like this for the League, Bruce," Clark said.
"Mmm. I suppose now that I've officially been roped into it I can maybe start to think about--"
Dick's voice interrupted Bruce. "--Hey! He's going to join that Justice League?" he asked Clark, his eyes shining.
"I seem to have convinced him of the necessity," Clark said dryly.
"Awesome." Dick whisked a handful of rolls of blueprints from the cabinets. "He's been working on these for ages! Wait until you see them!"
Bruce made an alarmed noise as Dick unrolled the blueprints: dozens of possible schemata for a space station, diagrams of potential security systems, an elaborate circuitry design for a computer system.
"You can maybe start to think about it, Bruce?" said Clark.
"Well," said Bruce. He coughed into his hand briefly. "They didn't take that long to make, really."
Clark shuffled through the piles of painstakingly meticulous blueprints. "I like this one," he said, lifting one of the station designs up.
Bruce snorted. "That one? That's crap, that's the first one I made. No, no, this is the one," he announced, snatching a blueprint up unerringly. "Look at this." He held it up for Clark to admire. "This one's elegant, pragmatic--look at the placement of the observation deck. And it's outfitted for much better fuel economy."
"It's probably a lot more expensive that the other one."
Dark blue eyes nearly snapped sparks. "Now is not the time to get chintzy, Clark. The Justice League is not going to operate out of some cut-rate ramshackle satellite. What kind of symbol of Justice cuts corners? No," he said, slapping the blueprint down on the table with finality, "I am not going to let you do a half-assed job on this."
Fortunately, Clark was saved from having to respond by Dick spilling a pile of paper on the table next to the schemata. Clark blinked at an assortment of costumes in colored crayon. "They're very...bright, Richard," he said carefully. Beside him Bruce rolled his eyes very slightly.
"They're all kind of based on my circus costume," Dick explained, pulling out a costume of combined gold, magenta, orange and...were those feathers? "I want to be Flamebird! From your story!"
"That's...wonderful!" said Clark cheerfully. "But you know, 'Flamebird' doesn't really go with 'Bat,' when you think about it. Bats are real and Flamebirds are mythical."
"That's true," Dick mused. "But I want to be something bright and happy. And Mom always called me her little Dickie bird." His eyes were sad.
"There are lots of cheerful real birds out there too. And some of these other costumes look great. You probably don't need the real feathers, though," Clark suggested.
Dick eyed one of the pictures critically. "You might be right. Sequins might be better."
Bruce made a small sound of despair, too low for the boy to catch, but Clark shot him a laughing look. Bruce would probably keep Dick off the streets as long as possible merely to keep from having to make him the costume.
: : :
"Those are what you wear to sleep in?" Bruce said indignantly as Clark emerged from the upstairs bathroom, toothbrush in hand.
Clark looked down at his ragged and worn gray sweatsuit. "What's wrong with my sleepwear, Bruce?"
Bruce tsked at him. "You're hopeless, Clark. There's no reason to maintain that schlub facade even while you sleep."
"It's not entirely a facade," Clark muttered sullenly, but Bruce was not to be deterred.
"There is absolutely no reason not to look your best, even in repose."
"You sound like a GQ article," Clark said, sounding amused. "These are comfortable."
Bruce crossed his arms and glowered. Then he reached out and dragged Clark across the hall and into his room. "Whoa," said Clark a bit nervously, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Bruce rummaged through a dresser drawer and came up with a pair of midnight-blue silk pajamas. He tossed them at Clark, who caught them by reflex. Clark stared at him, then down at the handful of sapphire-colored silk. Then back at him.
Bruce pointed to an ornate changing screen in the corner of the room. "Put them on." Clark shrugged, bewildered, and disappeared behind the screen.
The rustling of cotton and silk behind the screen caught at Bruce. He didn't even exactly know why he was being so perverse about Clark's sleeping fashion choices.
Well, yes he did. He wanted to see Clark in something flattering. Something Bruce had picked out for him.
Something that belonged to Bruce.
Clark's voice from behind the screen: "It's a little tight in the chest, Bruce."
"Well, leave it unbuttoned," Bruce said lightly. He dropped into the armchair in the opposite corner and waited until Clark emerged wearing the dark blue pajamas. "Nice," said Bruce, his voice careless. "That's a bit more like it." He looked away, out the window. It wasn't hard to take his eyes away from Clark at all, because he could see it it wherever he looked now: The silk clinging to Clark's legs like water, the shirt open to reveal corded muscle, taut skin. He almost needed to rub at his eyes now before he could manage to see anything else.
"Thanks for the makeover," Clark said, sounding rather uncomfortable. Of course, he had just found out Bruce was attracted to men yesterday; he was probably worried that Bruce was coming on to him.
Admittedly, Bruce wished he could. Of course, that made it all the more imperative he not show it. They had to work together, after all, and if Superman was wondering if Batman was checking out his ass it might...strain their working relationship. Their friendship.
Bruce realized with a sudden pang that his friendship with Clark had somehow, somewhere, become too important to risk with a little flirtatious banter. Stupid Bat, let your guard down and end up immediately falling for your best friend. Your straight best friend. He let that annoyance trickle into his voice just enough to keep it cool and somewhat distant as he stood up. "Well, I'm going downstairs to get a little work done before bed. I don't really want Batman to be seen on the streets the same night Bruce gets back in town, but that doesn't mean I can't get a lot done."
Clark shifted awkwardly, running a fold of the dangling pajama top between his fingers. "Okay. I guess I'll catch a little sleep. Maybe I'll patrol Metropolis for a bit in the early morning."
"Just make sure you're back for breakfast at seven, or both Alfred and Dick will have my head for letting you go."
Clark chuckled at the doorway. "I don't intend to miss Alfred's breakfast." He paused. "Good night, Bruce."
"Night, Clark." Once the Kryptonian was gone, Bruce put on his own pajamas and a warm robe and headed down to the computer banks. He pored over the police reports for the last few days, ran a few simulations.
Then he remembered the Kryptonian cloth tucked into his uniform's belt.
He pulled out the tiny square and unfolded it, marveling at how the fabric collapsed into something so small. It wasn't even like it was thin: no, it had a deep, velvety texture and was heavy, luxurious.
He ran a scanner across it quickly and sat down in the womb chair to watch and sort the results, the cape still in his hands, warm and comforting. The analyses--tensile strength, chemical composition, light refraction--scrolled in front of his eyes. Cloth on his palms. It felt slightly different on his palms than on the back of his hands. Velvet and brocade, silk and something more slippery than silk, all at once. Warm. Crimson warmth.
He realized abruptly that he'd been staring at the same report for about ten minutes, just running the cape through his hands almost mindlessly. Did it have a scent, he wondered abruptly? He bundled a handful up and put it to his face. Checking for aromatic qualities, he thought a bit muzzily. An important part of cloth analysis.
It was warm on his cheek, soft and yielding. A faint scent of something completely uncategorizable, somewhere between flowers and spices. Was that the scent of the cloth, or of Clark? He buried his face in crimson slickness and inhaled deeply, feeling velvet warmth on his lips. The image of Clark in midnight blue silk rose up again in his mind's eye. Bruce felt his breath move the scarlet cloth in front of his face.
He pulled it down and tried to focus. This level of distraction was...unexpected. He was willing to accept that he...cared for Clark, but the demands of dealing with Matsunaga, with Chiaki and the conference, with his memories of Seio, had kept his body from catching up to his heart.
It seemed to have caught up now. Bruce grimaced to find that he was still stroking the cape, the sharp-rich texture of it beneath his hands like flame. It felt warm to his palms, cooler and smoother to the back of his hands. He wondered if the texture would feel different to other parts of his body.
He shivered.
Bruce stood up, annoyed, tossed the cape across the chair, and went to grab some tools to use on it. Unlikely that anything could possibly damage its pristine perfection, but it was important to try. He turned back and stood for a long time in front of the womb chair. The cape was draped across the black leather of the chair sinuously, light glowing and glinting off it in different places, shadows nestled into its folds.
Midnight blue silk up against Clark's body. Perfect skin wrapped in Bruce's garments. The voluptuous echo of alien cloth on the skin of his hands, tingling and warm.
Bruce swallowed.
He undid the sash of his robe.
: : :
The Manor sheets turned out to be a disappointing navy-blue cotton. At least the guest room sheets were. Perhaps the main bedroom's sheets were purple satin? Or...Clark had heard of leather sheets, and could rather imagine Bruce's perverse sense of humor prompting him to deck his bed out in his signature material. He resisted the temptation to check with x-ray vision. That would be rude.
Or perhaps he just didn't want to be disappointed again.
Clark slid between the long-awaited sheets with a sigh. They were, of course, extremely high-quality cotton sheets, whisper-soft to the touch. The silk pajamas shifted around his body as he pulled them up. He wondered if Bruce wore these particular pajamas often.
He tried to stop thinking about that.
It was a silly, physical crush. Nothing more. He just had to...stop dwelling on it and the urge would go away. Clark rolled over. Then he rolled over again. He stared at the ceiling, which had some crazy detailwork on it, flowers and leaves in the plaster. He counted the leaves for a while. He couldn't sleep. It figured.
The Manor was silent, a deep, thick silence that Clark never heard in Metropolis, in his little apartment facing the highway. He closed his eyes. He needed to focus on something to relax himself.
Deep below the Manor, he heard Bruce's heartbeat.
Almost without meaning to, he narrowed his hearing in on it, on Bruce's heart and the sound of his breathing, as he had on the airplane. It took a moment to focus so intently, to make only those two sounds echo in his ears, but he managed it. He didn't want to hear the clicking keys of the computer, didn't want to hear the squeak of the chair as Bruce turned. Just his heart. Just his breath. That wasn't eavesdropping...so much. He wouldn't hear any secrets that way unless Bruce talked aloud to himself, and Clark doubted he did. Clark would just stop listening if he started talking.
He lay in bed, nestled in silk and cotton, the steady, calm thrum of Bruce's blood in his ears, the low, even whistle of his breath in his mind. It was soothing, he thought sleepily. It would be pleasant to sleep this way, surrounded by just those two sounds.
Bruce's heartbeat suddenly jumped.
It settled into a slightly faster rate, and Clark heard the other man take a long, almost shaky breath. The heartbeat spiked again, slowing down very gradually. Then it started to accelerate at a very slow rate.
Clark remembered the exercise equipment, imagined Bruce in workout gear, turning from the computer to the pommel horse, his hands steady and sure, his legs scissoring the air like wings. Shadows in his dark hair, eyes closed, lost in the rhythm of the workout. Floating. Clark could see the lines of his body as he moved. Bruce's heartbeat was in his ears, intimate. He should probably stop listening, but he couldn't seem to remember how, half-asleep, dreamily imagining Bruce starting to sweat slightly, the sheen of dampness cool on his skin in the underground air. It would taste like salt. Clark licked his lips.
Bruce's breathing was slightly ragged. Perhaps he was on the rings now, powerful arms holding himself still for so much longer than any other human could bear. A thin white t-shirt, maybe, clinging against chiseled muscles by now. He shouldn't be listening. Bruce's pulse in his ears, through his body. Speeding up so slowly. Clark realized dimly that the silk on him was unbearably cloying, soft...he felt his hands on himself, pulling down the pajama bottoms almost despite himself. Bruce made a small, breathy sound, a very faint "oh." Clark imagined corded muscles tense on the rings, frozen, holding steady, stiff with anticipation...
Clark wasn't going to do this. He wasn't. The sheets--
Another breath from Bruce: sharp, almost surprised, fading into throttled huskiness.
Clark scrabbled for tissues at the side of the bed.
Maybe he was on that high bar, his long body soaring, controlled falling. Bruce's heartbeat in Clark's ears was hammering now, the other man's breaths harsh and deep. Clark was moving with those breaths, moving closer. Closer. He saw Bruce falling. Clark wanted to catch him. Wanted to hold him. Tell him it was all right, he'd never let anyone hurt him so again. The look in his eyes when he spoke of Seio. Clark couldn't bear it. Wanted him to look at Clark that way. With those incredible eyes, sad under all the cynicism. Lust spiked through him, and something else, something he didn't want to look at, something dangerous and frightening. No, no, he thought, alarmed, Stop now, stop it, don't let yourself--
Far away in the cave, Bruce's breath caught, gasping, nearly a sob, and his heartbeat stuttered frantically. The break in the rhythm snapped some line of tension drawn through Clark's body and he felt himself twist wildly in the bed, against his hands, stammering out the words he had tried to keep from saying, the emotions he had tried to keep from feeling. He said them. He felt them.
No turning back now.
: : :
In the cave, Bruce Wayne was curled up in the womb chair, wrapped in scarlet cape. His shudders faded away slowly, the muscles in his body going lax, soothed. He pulled the cape closer, feeling its warmth touching him, caressing. Comforting.
He slipped into sleep with that protection around him and for once had no nightmares at all.
In his bed on the third floor, Clark Kent pried dazed eyes open to look at the ceiling, not really seeing its rococo details. Not just lust at all. And it wasn't going away. The air was very quiet, the night very warm.
It was still only spring, but it felt for a moment almost as hot as summer.