Gardens of Wayne Manor: Trophy (42/42)
Title: Chapter Forty-Two: Trophy
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth, Martha Kent, Lois Lane, Perry White
Rating: PG
Warnings: None necessary
Continuity: The Gardens of Wayne Manor is an AU series in which Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's lives intertwine at an early age. Click here for the complete series and series notes.
Word Count: 2700Summary: Two new heroes start making plans for the future.
From: Bruce Wayne
To: Clark Kent
Subject: Good morning, sunshine!
Do you know what? I woke up this morning and the first thing, the very first thing I thought was--
Well, to be honest, it was "Damn, my shoulder hurts." But RIGHT AFTER THAT, I thought, "Clark Kent told me he loved me yesterday."
You did, didn't you? I wasn't just imagining that?
Hold on.
Okay, I just asked Alfred, and he assured me that you did indeed assert that. He then requested that I reserve summoning him for emergencies, not understanding that this was an emergency. You see, I've imagined it so many times and so many ways over the last years--more than four years, most of my life, I think--that I just couldn't be sure. And everything hinges on that. What could be more of an emergency?
I confess I never imagined it going the way it did. Perhaps this is proof that it was real. I hope so.
Did I tell you I loved you too? I think I did. But I'd better do it again.
I love you, Clark Kent.
: : :
From: Clark Kent
To: Bruce Wayne
Subject: Re: Good morning, sunshine!
Bruce, you are aware that Mannheim isn't monitoring our mail anymore, right?
: : :
From: Bruce Wayne
To: Clark Kent
Subject: I am pouting!
You have made me pout! Can't a man express a small fraction of his happiness to his true love without it being interpreted as some kind of play-acting? I have bared my heart to you, ungrateful boy, and this is the thanks I get?
Though in some ways I can't blame you. I have found, over the years, that if one expresses the truth in exaggerated or theatrical ways, people will assume that one is being insincere. This has proved very useful at times. But here's my deepest secret, Clark: I meant every word. I am a very lucky man. And I love you very much.
: : :
Perry White looked, for a moment, very happy. He held up the morning edition with the picture of Superman battling mecha: sharply in-focus, well-framed, caught in mid-punch. Superman! blared the headline above Lois Lane's story. Below the fold was a story with a more modestly-sized headline and less column inches: Mannheim's Failed Bid For Power, by Clark Kent. "Good work," he said simply to the three people in his office.
"Thank you, chief!" Lois beamed at him, then caught the paper before it could hit her head.
"Now get out there and get the next story! Stop loafing around in here looking for praise!"
"Nice work, Kent," said Lois as they headed back to their desks. "That was a good story. You know, I think we make a good team."
Clark pushed his glasses up on his nose and almost tripped over his shoes. "Gee, thanks, Ms Lane!"
Shaking her head, she straightened his tie with a casual big-sister air. "I guess you can call me Lois if you like," she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. "And why are you in such a good mood?"
"I--I am?"
"You're grinning like a lunatic, Clark. Lots more than getting the second feature story would warrant. Let me guess--your trip to Gotham went well?"
He couldn't seem to stop smiling, even in the face of her knowing wink. "It did, Lois. Thanks for asking."
From: Clark Kent
To: Bruce Wayne
Subject: My dear bat
Forgive me. After so many veiled emails, after so much wondering, "Will he understand what I'm saying here? Will he read between the lines?" Well, being able to be direct is a little dizzying.
To be direct: I've loved you since our childhood days of playing at being knights and swearing on the Sword of Oaths. Every dream I've ever had has come true, and it's better than I ever imagined. My friend, my partner, my comrade, my love.
I'll be back in Gotham this afternoon and will tell you all this again in person, at length.
: : :
"After you, Mrs. Kent."
Martha Kent stopped on the threshold, her eyes wide as she looked into the kitchen of the farmhouse she hadn't seen for more than two decades. "Oh, Bruce," she breathed as she stepped over the lintel into her old home.
Everything was still tidy, if coated with a fine layer of dust. Alfred tsked slightly as he passed a finger over a windowsill. "Well," he said, "It's nothing a little elbow grease won't fix."
Martha protested as Alfred put down the bucket he was carrying, opened the Pine-Sol and began to arrange cloths. "But Mr. Pennyworth, you just finished driving us all here. This was supposed to be your vacation, a chance to relax."
"My dear lady," sniffed Alfred as he rolled up his sleeves. "I am relaxing."
And Bruce had to admit that cleaning a farmhouse would probably be relaxing compared to the work they'd all been doing for the last few months. Martha and Alfred had gone from designing and sewing an improved bat-suit to landscaping the grounds to hide certain security features. Neither had ever protested about Bruce's choice of vocation; instead they seemed to take it as a challenge to find the best way to keep their headstrong boy safe. There had been a bitter struggle over the type and amount of bulletproofing to put in the costume, until Bruce had been forced to side with Alfred and choose flexibility over armor. It had been a relief at times to escape to the caves below the Manor where he and Clark were working together.
As the sharp clean scent of pine oil filled the kitchen, Bruce risked sneaking a glance at Clark for the first time. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still looking around. His face was a complicated mix of emotions: sadness and joy mingling with hope and anticipation. He caught Bruce's eye and a boyish smile suddenly flashed across his face. "Let me show you my old room," he said.
"Shouldn't we stay and help?"
"Go on," Martha Kent said, waving a rag at them and laughing. "Mr. Pennyworth and I have things well in hand. Give him the full tour."
Clark and Martha's eyes met and Bruce felt a tingle of excitement go through him at their freighted look. He hadn't wanted to assume Clark would show him, but--
"Let's go!" Clark was pulling at Bruce's hand, tugging him up the stairs.
After a tour of the house and barn, Clark took Bruce's hand once more. Bruce could feel it trembling slightly in his. "Okay," Clark said. "This is it."
Together they walked through the corn field that soughed gently in the wind around them, an eerie sound. The endless rows were disorienting, but Clark walked unerringly toward the north-eastern corner of the field as if pulled by a lodestone. "I can hear it," he said softly when Bruce looked a question at him.
The earth there showed no sign of disturbance after all this time, but Clark knelt and touched it gently. Then he shifted into a blur of motion.
Bruce watched in amazement as the ground gave way as though in a stop-action film of an excavation. He'd seen all of Clark's powers in action now--even the super-ventriloquism--but it never failed to amaze him whenever he saw Clark do some superhuman feat. In a moment the earth had been cleared away to reveal--
Clark caught his breath beside him, and he heard himself echo the sound. In the shallow pit lay a small rocket, only big enough to hold a toddler, made of crystals and light. It looked far too fragile to carry a child across the vast distances of space, and for a moment Bruce shivered, wondering how close he'd come to never meeting the man standing next to him.
Clark stepped forward and touched it, and it blazed into otherworldly light. And opened.
: : :
The little convertible whipped past the Welcome to Rhode Island sign, and Clark glanced over at Bruce at the driver's wheel. His hair was tousled by the breeze and he was smiling into the sunlight, eyes hidden by stylish sunglasses. He hadn't explained where they were going, merely saying there was something he wanted to show Clark. Lois had been annoyed--their latest story was about a brash young businessman named Lex Luthor and his possible ethics violations--but she had accepted Clark's promise to come in all day Sunday with only a slight rolling of her eyes. She seemed to take an almost smug satisfaction in her knowledge of his relationship with Bruce, although Clark wasn't sure if it was happiness for him or a hope that someday she could parlay that into a good story. Probably both.
"Almost there," said Bruce as the trees started to give way to white clapboard houses. The sea came into view, glittering in the sunlight, and Bruce pulled over to a rest stop. Reaching into the back seat, he grabbed a backpack and opened the door. "Ready?"
Everything about him sang of excitement and anticipation, like a child on Christmas morning waiting for his best friend to open his fantastic present. He jumped from rock to rock as they made their way to the water, seeming to enjoy picking the most slippery and unstable-looking stones to land on.
"Somehow, I don't think we're here for a day at the sea," Clark said as they walked along the craggy shoreline. "Where are we going?"
Bruce pointed ahead of them, about a mile down the coast. "See that mountain?"
It was a solitary crag rearing up almost from the water, surprisingly high for the New England coast. "Sure."
"Do you like it?"
"Um. It looks pretty."
"I bought it," Bruce said, pushing his hand through his hair.
Clark frowned. "Not that I have a problem with that, but why?"
Bruce walked in silence for a while as the mountain loomed closer. As they neared the base, he said, "You know that new guy in Star City? The archer?"
"Sure. Green Arrow, right?"
"Yes. There's more like him, too. Some more obvious than others. Someone rescued a ship off the coast of Maine last week. And there's someone in Colorado, but no one's gotten a good description yet. And of course that princess with the invisible jet who showed up a month ago and started working out of Boston."
"Don't forget that woman with the motorcycle and the enhanced voice, the one who didn't take kindly to Batman interfering with her drug bust."
Bruce rubbed the back of his head ruefully, as if remembering a migraine. "I'm unlikely to forget her. Anyway, there are getting to be more and more of them." He glanced over at Clark, a glint of eyes over the top of his sunglasses. "People like us."
"There's no one like you," laughed Clark.
Bruce seemed obscurely pleased by this statement. "You know what I mean." They were close enough now that Clark could see a cave entrance at the base of the mountain; Bruce sped up the pace to almost a run and soon they were at the dark arc in the rock. Bruce stepped into it, then turned around and held out his hand to Clark. "I've got some ideas."
Clark took his hand and walked into the darkness with him.
Bruce fumbled in the dark and threw a switch, and the interior of the mountain blazed with harsh fluorescent lights, bare bulbs hung from walls. The entrance quickly widened into a spacious lobby, albeit one with rough-hewn walls and no furniture. "This will be our atrium," he said.
"You've been hiring someone else to construct this," Clark said, feeling a pang of something like jealousy, and Bruce laughed and kissed his hand.
"I wanted to surprise you. Look." He pulled Clark up a flight of stone stairs to the second floor. "This will be the meeting room. We'll put in a big round table, like--"
"--King Arthur," Clark finished with him, smiling.
"And over here will be the communications array. We can coordinate all the group's activities, send people where they're most needed."
"You can't call it 'the group' all the time," said Clark. "So what do you have in mind?"
Bruce glanced quickly at him out of the corner of his eye. "I was thinking the League, but...not the League of Valor. That only ever had two members," he said, low and warm.
"The League of Courage? The League of Justice?"
"I like that, but it sounds better as the Justice League, maybe," said Bruce.
"The Justice League," said Clark, and kissed him.
Bruce broke away from the kiss after a long and breathless while and whirled to another door. "And this room," he said, "This will be our trophy room."
"Trophy room?" Clark stared around the blank stone walls with their hooks and brackets, trying to imagine them covered with prizes and artifacts. "You're keeping it modest, I see."
"Better to aim for the stars and miss," retorted Bruce lightly.
"As if you would ever miss anything you aimed at."
Bruce's smile was private and satisfied as he looked at Clark. "Indeed." His face grew more serious. "Clark, there are going to be things that are too big for you and I to fight alone. That metal that Mannheim was using--that was nothing terrestrial. Its atomic structure..." He shuddered once as though he couldn't help himself. "It proved to me that there are forces in the universe we don't understand yet, forces that are cruel beyond imagining, and will not rest until all hope is destroyed. To fight something like that, we're going to need the very best in the world, working together. We're going to have to think bigger than Metropolis or Gotham, bigger than just ourselves." He drew close and rested his forehead against Clark's. "You will always be my partner and my comrade, my brother in arms. That's where everything starts."
He turned and slung the backpack off his back, letting it rest on the floor. "I have our first trophy," he said. He pulled out a small box of pale wood, rich with a golden sheen. "Here."
Somehow Clark felt no surprise when he opened it and saw, nestled in a bed of black velvet, the antique silver letter opener, its blue glass gems gleaming in the harsh light. "You never lost it," he said.
"I would as soon have thrown away my heart," said Bruce, his words oddly formal. "It just...took me a long time to realize why that was." He lifted it from the box and put it on a shelf on the wall. From beneath the velvet he pulled a small silver plaque engraved with simple letters: The Sword of Oaths. He set it next to the letter opener. "There."
Clark reached out and touched the old symbol of heroism, and friendship, and chivalry. It looked right there. "But you know," he said, laughter edging his voice, "Our future teammates are going to wonder why a beat-up old letter opener is in a place of honor in the League Trophy Room."
Bruce's arms were around him, his face eager, looking into Clark's eyes as if he saw the future there and found it delightful.
"Let them wonder," Bruce murmured against his mouth.
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth, Martha Kent, Lois Lane, Perry White
Rating: PG
Warnings: None necessary
Continuity: The Gardens of Wayne Manor is an AU series in which Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's lives intertwine at an early age. Click here for the complete series and series notes.
Word Count: 2700Summary: Two new heroes start making plans for the future.
From: Bruce Wayne
To: Clark Kent
Subject: Good morning, sunshine!
Do you know what? I woke up this morning and the first thing, the very first thing I thought was--
Well, to be honest, it was "Damn, my shoulder hurts." But RIGHT AFTER THAT, I thought, "Clark Kent told me he loved me yesterday."
You did, didn't you? I wasn't just imagining that?
Hold on.
Okay, I just asked Alfred, and he assured me that you did indeed assert that. He then requested that I reserve summoning him for emergencies, not understanding that this was an emergency. You see, I've imagined it so many times and so many ways over the last years--more than four years, most of my life, I think--that I just couldn't be sure. And everything hinges on that. What could be more of an emergency?
I confess I never imagined it going the way it did. Perhaps this is proof that it was real. I hope so.
Did I tell you I loved you too? I think I did. But I'd better do it again.
I love you, Clark Kent.
: : :
From: Clark Kent
To: Bruce Wayne
Subject: Re: Good morning, sunshine!
Bruce, you are aware that Mannheim isn't monitoring our mail anymore, right?
: : :
From: Bruce Wayne
To: Clark Kent
Subject: I am pouting!
You have made me pout! Can't a man express a small fraction of his happiness to his true love without it being interpreted as some kind of play-acting? I have bared my heart to you, ungrateful boy, and this is the thanks I get?
Though in some ways I can't blame you. I have found, over the years, that if one expresses the truth in exaggerated or theatrical ways, people will assume that one is being insincere. This has proved very useful at times. But here's my deepest secret, Clark: I meant every word. I am a very lucky man. And I love you very much.
: : :
Perry White looked, for a moment, very happy. He held up the morning edition with the picture of Superman battling mecha: sharply in-focus, well-framed, caught in mid-punch. Superman! blared the headline above Lois Lane's story. Below the fold was a story with a more modestly-sized headline and less column inches: Mannheim's Failed Bid For Power, by Clark Kent. "Good work," he said simply to the three people in his office.
"Thank you, chief!" Lois beamed at him, then caught the paper before it could hit her head.
"Now get out there and get the next story! Stop loafing around in here looking for praise!"
"Nice work, Kent," said Lois as they headed back to their desks. "That was a good story. You know, I think we make a good team."
Clark pushed his glasses up on his nose and almost tripped over his shoes. "Gee, thanks, Ms Lane!"
Shaking her head, she straightened his tie with a casual big-sister air. "I guess you can call me Lois if you like," she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. "And why are you in such a good mood?"
"I--I am?"
"You're grinning like a lunatic, Clark. Lots more than getting the second feature story would warrant. Let me guess--your trip to Gotham went well?"
He couldn't seem to stop smiling, even in the face of her knowing wink. "It did, Lois. Thanks for asking."
From: Clark Kent
To: Bruce Wayne
Subject: My dear bat
Forgive me. After so many veiled emails, after so much wondering, "Will he understand what I'm saying here? Will he read between the lines?" Well, being able to be direct is a little dizzying.
To be direct: I've loved you since our childhood days of playing at being knights and swearing on the Sword of Oaths. Every dream I've ever had has come true, and it's better than I ever imagined. My friend, my partner, my comrade, my love.
I'll be back in Gotham this afternoon and will tell you all this again in person, at length.
: : :
"After you, Mrs. Kent."
Martha Kent stopped on the threshold, her eyes wide as she looked into the kitchen of the farmhouse she hadn't seen for more than two decades. "Oh, Bruce," she breathed as she stepped over the lintel into her old home.
Everything was still tidy, if coated with a fine layer of dust. Alfred tsked slightly as he passed a finger over a windowsill. "Well," he said, "It's nothing a little elbow grease won't fix."
Martha protested as Alfred put down the bucket he was carrying, opened the Pine-Sol and began to arrange cloths. "But Mr. Pennyworth, you just finished driving us all here. This was supposed to be your vacation, a chance to relax."
"My dear lady," sniffed Alfred as he rolled up his sleeves. "I am relaxing."
And Bruce had to admit that cleaning a farmhouse would probably be relaxing compared to the work they'd all been doing for the last few months. Martha and Alfred had gone from designing and sewing an improved bat-suit to landscaping the grounds to hide certain security features. Neither had ever protested about Bruce's choice of vocation; instead they seemed to take it as a challenge to find the best way to keep their headstrong boy safe. There had been a bitter struggle over the type and amount of bulletproofing to put in the costume, until Bruce had been forced to side with Alfred and choose flexibility over armor. It had been a relief at times to escape to the caves below the Manor where he and Clark were working together.
As the sharp clean scent of pine oil filled the kitchen, Bruce risked sneaking a glance at Clark for the first time. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still looking around. His face was a complicated mix of emotions: sadness and joy mingling with hope and anticipation. He caught Bruce's eye and a boyish smile suddenly flashed across his face. "Let me show you my old room," he said.
"Shouldn't we stay and help?"
"Go on," Martha Kent said, waving a rag at them and laughing. "Mr. Pennyworth and I have things well in hand. Give him the full tour."
Clark and Martha's eyes met and Bruce felt a tingle of excitement go through him at their freighted look. He hadn't wanted to assume Clark would show him, but--
"Let's go!" Clark was pulling at Bruce's hand, tugging him up the stairs.
After a tour of the house and barn, Clark took Bruce's hand once more. Bruce could feel it trembling slightly in his. "Okay," Clark said. "This is it."
Together they walked through the corn field that soughed gently in the wind around them, an eerie sound. The endless rows were disorienting, but Clark walked unerringly toward the north-eastern corner of the field as if pulled by a lodestone. "I can hear it," he said softly when Bruce looked a question at him.
The earth there showed no sign of disturbance after all this time, but Clark knelt and touched it gently. Then he shifted into a blur of motion.
Bruce watched in amazement as the ground gave way as though in a stop-action film of an excavation. He'd seen all of Clark's powers in action now--even the super-ventriloquism--but it never failed to amaze him whenever he saw Clark do some superhuman feat. In a moment the earth had been cleared away to reveal--
Clark caught his breath beside him, and he heard himself echo the sound. In the shallow pit lay a small rocket, only big enough to hold a toddler, made of crystals and light. It looked far too fragile to carry a child across the vast distances of space, and for a moment Bruce shivered, wondering how close he'd come to never meeting the man standing next to him.
Clark stepped forward and touched it, and it blazed into otherworldly light. And opened.
: : :
The little convertible whipped past the Welcome to Rhode Island sign, and Clark glanced over at Bruce at the driver's wheel. His hair was tousled by the breeze and he was smiling into the sunlight, eyes hidden by stylish sunglasses. He hadn't explained where they were going, merely saying there was something he wanted to show Clark. Lois had been annoyed--their latest story was about a brash young businessman named Lex Luthor and his possible ethics violations--but she had accepted Clark's promise to come in all day Sunday with only a slight rolling of her eyes. She seemed to take an almost smug satisfaction in her knowledge of his relationship with Bruce, although Clark wasn't sure if it was happiness for him or a hope that someday she could parlay that into a good story. Probably both.
"Almost there," said Bruce as the trees started to give way to white clapboard houses. The sea came into view, glittering in the sunlight, and Bruce pulled over to a rest stop. Reaching into the back seat, he grabbed a backpack and opened the door. "Ready?"
Everything about him sang of excitement and anticipation, like a child on Christmas morning waiting for his best friend to open his fantastic present. He jumped from rock to rock as they made their way to the water, seeming to enjoy picking the most slippery and unstable-looking stones to land on.
"Somehow, I don't think we're here for a day at the sea," Clark said as they walked along the craggy shoreline. "Where are we going?"
Bruce pointed ahead of them, about a mile down the coast. "See that mountain?"
It was a solitary crag rearing up almost from the water, surprisingly high for the New England coast. "Sure."
"Do you like it?"
"Um. It looks pretty."
"I bought it," Bruce said, pushing his hand through his hair.
Clark frowned. "Not that I have a problem with that, but why?"
Bruce walked in silence for a while as the mountain loomed closer. As they neared the base, he said, "You know that new guy in Star City? The archer?"
"Sure. Green Arrow, right?"
"Yes. There's more like him, too. Some more obvious than others. Someone rescued a ship off the coast of Maine last week. And there's someone in Colorado, but no one's gotten a good description yet. And of course that princess with the invisible jet who showed up a month ago and started working out of Boston."
"Don't forget that woman with the motorcycle and the enhanced voice, the one who didn't take kindly to Batman interfering with her drug bust."
Bruce rubbed the back of his head ruefully, as if remembering a migraine. "I'm unlikely to forget her. Anyway, there are getting to be more and more of them." He glanced over at Clark, a glint of eyes over the top of his sunglasses. "People like us."
"There's no one like you," laughed Clark.
Bruce seemed obscurely pleased by this statement. "You know what I mean." They were close enough now that Clark could see a cave entrance at the base of the mountain; Bruce sped up the pace to almost a run and soon they were at the dark arc in the rock. Bruce stepped into it, then turned around and held out his hand to Clark. "I've got some ideas."
Clark took his hand and walked into the darkness with him.
Bruce fumbled in the dark and threw a switch, and the interior of the mountain blazed with harsh fluorescent lights, bare bulbs hung from walls. The entrance quickly widened into a spacious lobby, albeit one with rough-hewn walls and no furniture. "This will be our atrium," he said.
"You've been hiring someone else to construct this," Clark said, feeling a pang of something like jealousy, and Bruce laughed and kissed his hand.
"I wanted to surprise you. Look." He pulled Clark up a flight of stone stairs to the second floor. "This will be the meeting room. We'll put in a big round table, like--"
"--King Arthur," Clark finished with him, smiling.
"And over here will be the communications array. We can coordinate all the group's activities, send people where they're most needed."
"You can't call it 'the group' all the time," said Clark. "So what do you have in mind?"
Bruce glanced quickly at him out of the corner of his eye. "I was thinking the League, but...not the League of Valor. That only ever had two members," he said, low and warm.
"The League of Courage? The League of Justice?"
"I like that, but it sounds better as the Justice League, maybe," said Bruce.
"The Justice League," said Clark, and kissed him.
Bruce broke away from the kiss after a long and breathless while and whirled to another door. "And this room," he said, "This will be our trophy room."
"Trophy room?" Clark stared around the blank stone walls with their hooks and brackets, trying to imagine them covered with prizes and artifacts. "You're keeping it modest, I see."
"Better to aim for the stars and miss," retorted Bruce lightly.
"As if you would ever miss anything you aimed at."
Bruce's smile was private and satisfied as he looked at Clark. "Indeed." His face grew more serious. "Clark, there are going to be things that are too big for you and I to fight alone. That metal that Mannheim was using--that was nothing terrestrial. Its atomic structure..." He shuddered once as though he couldn't help himself. "It proved to me that there are forces in the universe we don't understand yet, forces that are cruel beyond imagining, and will not rest until all hope is destroyed. To fight something like that, we're going to need the very best in the world, working together. We're going to have to think bigger than Metropolis or Gotham, bigger than just ourselves." He drew close and rested his forehead against Clark's. "You will always be my partner and my comrade, my brother in arms. That's where everything starts."
He turned and slung the backpack off his back, letting it rest on the floor. "I have our first trophy," he said. He pulled out a small box of pale wood, rich with a golden sheen. "Here."
Somehow Clark felt no surprise when he opened it and saw, nestled in a bed of black velvet, the antique silver letter opener, its blue glass gems gleaming in the harsh light. "You never lost it," he said.
"I would as soon have thrown away my heart," said Bruce, his words oddly formal. "It just...took me a long time to realize why that was." He lifted it from the box and put it on a shelf on the wall. From beneath the velvet he pulled a small silver plaque engraved with simple letters: The Sword of Oaths. He set it next to the letter opener. "There."
Clark reached out and touched the old symbol of heroism, and friendship, and chivalry. It looked right there. "But you know," he said, laughter edging his voice, "Our future teammates are going to wonder why a beat-up old letter opener is in a place of honor in the League Trophy Room."
Bruce's arms were around him, his face eager, looking into Clark's eyes as if he saw the future there and found it delightful.
"Let them wonder," Bruce murmured against his mouth.