The House of the Earth Conclusion: Wildflowers
Title: Chapter Eight: Wildflowers
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce, Lex Luthor, Selina Kyle, the Planet staff and more.
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and conquer its people.
Warnings: None needed
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5000
Summary: Four months in Metropolis and Gotham, as winter turns slowly to spring.
The city lay in the icy moonlight, quiet for a brief moment. Her protector crouched on the ruined walls that had been the El plantation and looked out across it.
Gotham was a tent city now, the thin fabric of the shelters shivering in the cold wind. Every day new refugees arrived, people turned away from the bright walls of Metropolis, people drawn to the shadows of Gotham. Starving, desperate people, destitute but for the rags on their backs. The dregs of the earth, their eyes bleak, searching for a new life somewhere.
Gotham turned no one away.
It was a dangerous place, full of dangerous people. And yet it was full of hope as well, and promise. And over Gotham brooded the spirit of the Bat, and her people knew that his dark wings sheltered them.
The Bat moved through Gotham like a shadow, watching over his people.
He was on the bridge to the mainland when another shadow detached itself from the darkness and landed soundlessly on the rusted girder beside him. "I have a message for you from the Lord of Metropolis," Selina's voice came from the blackness.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he growled, and she chuckled in delight.
"Oh, very well. I have a message for Bruce Wayne from the Lord of Metropolis. Would you be a sweetheart and pass it on to him, Tall Dark Stranger?"
"What is it?"
"Lex Luthor would like to meet with Bruce Wayne about trade agreements, arrangements between the two cities. To put it bluntly: Metropolis has technology, Gotham has land for growing crops. He believes that you could each benefit each other." A sideways glance at him that he didn't acknowledge. "And speaking of benefits, I met rather a handsome man in Smallville a few days ago. Clark Kent." She waited for a reaction and sighed ostentatiously when there was none. "He traveled back to Metropolis with us. It seems he'll be working at the Daily Planet from now on. A nice boy, very sweet, if a little naive. You really should come to Metropolis and meet him sometime."
A gust of wind swirled the dark figure's cape for a moment. "You can tell Lex that--"
"Oh, I'm afraid you'll have to tell him yourself," Selina purred. "I won't be going back to Metropolis."
He looked at her directly for the first time. "You won't? But you could be--"
"The Lady of Metropolis, yes," she said. She yawned, putting up a hand to delicately cover her mouth. "How do I say this? Metropolis was a bit...dull for my tastes. I prefer to work somewhere a little more...rough and tumble." Her eyes glinted laughter. "I think I'll be staying here."
"You would give up control of Metropolis to become a common thief?"
Selina snorted. "Come now. Do you honestly think I would merely trade one set of fetters for another? Lex is a dear, of course, but I've come to rather cherish my freedom." She held out one leather-gloved hand in front of her. "I stayed long enough to locate and...borrow some useful technology." She flexed her fingers and five diamond-sharp claws glittered; another motion and they were gone again. "Lex can consider it alimony if he ever misses it."
Bruce was frowning. "I won't let you prey on my people."
Selina pouted theatrically, swishing her whip. "Oh, don't be silly. I promise I'll only steal from people who really deserve it." She looked at the moonlit tents with a small moue of disappointment. "I'm sure eventually there'll be someone in Gotham wealthy enough to steal from." An impish smile. "Until then, I do believe I'll just enjoy being free." With a sudden backflip, she was on a higher girder. A quick series of cartwheels and she was gone into the night, her laughter trailing back to him.
"Just what I needed," he grumbled to himself, but his heart wasn't quite in it. He looked to the east, where the horizon was just starting to gray. Soon he would head back to his tent. Alfred would have coffee ready. And he would start to plan his trip to Metropolis.
Clark, he thought, his heart lifting with the dawn for a moment.
There was a cry from the shadows, an unknown woman's voice raised in fear, a man's growling threat.
Batman swooped down into Gotham like an avenging angel.
: : :
"And to your right you can see the groundbreaking for what will soon become the finest hospital on Earth." Mercy Graves waved a bored hand toward the construction site. She wasn't the most enthusiastic tour conductor, but Bruce Wayne's mind was elsewhere anyway. As they approached a low, concrete-block building, he saw the neatly hand-lettered sign on the door: Daily Planet.
"Would you like to see Metropolis's newspaper?" Mercy asked. Her eyes were sharp, and he kept his face expressionless.
"If you'd like," he said. "I'm hoping there'll be a newspaper in Gotham soon, and it might be nice to get some tips."
"Right this way, then." She waved him inside.
To say the newspaper's offices were sparse would be an understatement; a few chairs and desks scattered around the room, stacks of paper everywhere. Bruce glanced around the room, keeping his glance impersonal, it wouldn't do to look avid, to look like he was eager to see--
There were a few people in the room, but none of them were the one he wanted to see. Bruce shook Perry White's hand, was introduced to a red-headed kid and a striking blonde woman--"We've got a few more staff than this, but they're out in the field right now"--and let Mercy steer him away and to some of the other sights of Metropolis.
He wasn't disappointed, he reminded himself. There would be time.
He wasn't disappointed.
They were passing by another construction site--for the Luthor Library--when it happened: a piece of scaffolding gave way and a worker was left hanging from a bent bit of metal, five stories above the ground. His terrified yell was still echoing across the square as both Mercy and Bruce broke into a run, heading toward him. The man scrabbled wildly, then let go--
There was a gust of wind and icy dust that made both of them stagger back, and when it cleared, the man was sitting, bewildered, on a piece of scaffold some distance from where he had let go. "What happened?" barked Mercy as the man climbed down to them.
"I don't know," the man said, still shaking all over. "I let go and then there was this freak wind and...I guess I got tossed over to this scaffold?"
Mercy glared at him, then up at the sky. "We should have left the sun red," she muttered under breath. Then she turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Bruce to help dust the man off.
"Does this kind of thing happen often?"
"Accidents?" The man shrugged, although that hadn't been exactly what Bruce meant. "Luthor scrimps on the equipment," the man said, "--he doesn't have any choice, of course, there just isn't enough to go around. But there've been a lot of falls, stuff failing, you know. It's a miracle no one's gotten killed, I guess."
"Sounds dangerous."
The man grinned. "Any danger's better than being under the boot of the Kryps. Nah, I'm happy to do my part to help Metropolis and Lord Luthor."
Bruce went to rejoin Mercy, who was tapping her foot.
He knew it was hopeless, but he couldn't help looking up at the sky.
An hour later he had finally seen all the sights and found himself shaking Luthor's hand. As usual, Luthor pressed as hard as he could. Bruce smiled at him. "Your city is truly a shining example to us all," he said.
"Skip the flattery, Wayne," retorted Luthor. "You have things I need, I have things you need. Let's get down to business. Oh," he added as Bruce started to pull up a seat at the large mahogany table, "One more thing." He snapped his fingers in the air, and the door opened.
Clark Kent came into the room.
"Kent works for the Planet," Luthor said as Bruce kept his face infinitely casual. "He'll be doing a story on our negotiations. Have you two met?" His eyes were watching Bruce's face keenly.
Clark was hunched over in a suit a couple of sizes too large. He was blinking rapidly behind the thick glasses, a nervous motion that made him look timid and cowed.
Bruce put out his hand. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. I'm Bruce Wayne. Nice to meet you."
Clark looked faintly surprised. "But we've met, Mr. Wayne." When Bruce continued to look blank, he prompted, "In Smallville? You were there a week? I showed you around? My name's Clark Kent."
Bruce shook his head thoughtfully. "I met a lot of people. Busy time. You don't ring a bell."
Now Clark looked annoyed, a bit petulant. "You stayed at my parents' house!"
Bruce snapped his fingers in revelation. "That's right! The Kents! Nice folks." He squinted at Clark. "Didn't you have a goatee or something back then?" he asked, gesturing at his chin. Clark shook his head. "Huh. I'm sorry, I just can't place you. Give me some time and I'm sure it'll come back to me."
He held out his hand again and Clark shook it, the vexed expression lingering on his face. "Nice to meet you too," Clark mumbled. His hand was warm and his grip strong, but he didn't hold onto Bruce's hand for an instant longer than appropriate.
"You should be careful of Mr. Wayne, Kent," said Luthor. "He's a dangerous man. Why, I do believe he's stolen my beloved Selina away from me." His eyes were sad, the tragic jilted lover. The people of Metropolis would eat that up, Bruce thought.
"Actually," he said cheerfully, "I believe it was Gotham that stole her heart, not me." Luthor's lips thinned slightly, but he didn't continue the argument.
Bruce sat down at the table, focusing all his attention on Lex Luthor. Not once did he look at the other man in the room. They were virtual strangers, meeting for the first time, unimportant to each other. Yet Bruce could feel him, like a lodestone magnetizing all his blood, drawing his soul toward him.
They didn't even say goodbye to each other after the meeting. Luthor looked a bit disappointed as Kent left the room without so much as a glance at Bruce, scribbling on his notebook. Bruce did not follow the other man with his eyes.
When he got back to Gotham late that night, he went to Alfred's tent. "I need your help," he said as Alfred blinked at him in the dim lantern light. "I need to know how people did it in the old times."
"Did what, sir?" asked a baffled Alfred.
"Courtship. Wooing. Dating. I need to know how to do it," Bruce said impatiently. "How to do it absolutely correctly."
: : :
Perry White looked up as Bruce entered the Planet offices two weeks later. "Ah, Mr. Wayne," he said.
"Mr. White," Bruce responded, nodding. "Thanks for letting me come down and take a look at how things are run here."
Perry led him over to a table where Lois Lane and Clark Kent were arguing over the wording of a headline. "I still think it should be 'Lanterns' Triumphant Return,'" Lois said, tapping the paper on the desk in front of them.
"Lois," sighed Clark, "You know it has to be something more like 'Luthor Welcomes Lanterns Home.'" He hadn't looked up when Bruce entered. "In the story we can--"
"No one will read the story with a propagandistic headline like that!" Lois stormed. "Clark, are you a man or a mouse?"
"Uh..."
"Lois, Clark. Stop bickering and say hello to Bruce Wayne, here from Gotham to pick up some tips on how to run a ship-shape newspaper full of hard-working, respectful employees. For some unknown reason, he decided to stop by here."
Lois laughed and held out her hand to Bruce. "Lois Lane. You probably don't remember me, but I saw you here and there...before."
"Of course I remember you," Bruce said, raising her hand briefly to his lips. She rolled her eyes and reclaimed it as he turned to Clark. "And you are..."
"Clark Kent," Clark said, holding out his hand. "We met briefly a couple of weeks ago. I covered your meeting with Luthor."
"Ah yes," Bruce said. "I remember now."
"Kent," snapped Perry, "Show Wayne around. I've got work to do."
Clark gave Bruce a tour of the offices, pointing out different types of work being done. The red-haired kid from Bruce's last visit bounded up and asked if Clark wanted to grab some sandwiches over lunch break. "Sure, Jimmy. Would you like to come along?" he said politely, turning to Bruce.
"I'd love to," Bruce said offhandedly, as if he had nothing better to do.
They ate sandwiches on a park bench and threw bread to the pigeons while Jimmy chattered almost non-stop about the new camera he'd found in a demolished building that would probably even work with some fixing. They sat side by side and said almost nothing to each other.
It was freezing cold and Bruce hardly even noticed.
: : :
Two more weeks went by.
Bruce Wayne was in Metropolis again on some small business trip when he ran into Clark Kent once more--an amazing coincidence, he just happened to be picking up a coffee from the convenience store that, as it turned out, Clark stopped by every day on the way home from work.
"Dent, isn't it? Clark Dent?"
Clark smiled, curling his hands around the styrofoam cup of cheap coffee. "Kent, actually. But I'm sure you'll get it right eventually if we keep running into each other like this."
Bruce took a sip of the coffee, grimaced. "This stuff is terrible. Toss it and I'll buy you a better one down the street."
They sat and talked over coffee for a couple of hours, discussing work and the reconstruction of their cities. They didn't talk about their pasts much--but then, very few people talked about their lives before. They looked forward, not back.
Bruce looked forward.
"I need to head back to Gotham," he said as evening settled over the city. "But I'd..." He paused and looked away from Clark's eyes for a moment. "I'd like to see you again. Take you to dinner, maybe?"
"I'd like that," said Clark simply. "I would."
: : :
Three days later, they were at dinner, sitting in a cheap burger joint and sharing a packet of fries. Clark was laughing as Bruce told him about his tent blowing over in a windstorm, gesturing to indicate his belongings flying everywhere. "You could live in better lodgings," Clark said. "You can afford it."
"Not until the last of Gotham's people have housing," Bruce said. "Besides, I like roughing it."
"It sounds fun."
Bruce was going to say something, but forgot it entirely at the affectionate laughter in Clark's eyes. They just looked at each other across the table for a moment, the food untouched, the rest of the room ignored. "I wish I had some chocolate," Bruce said.
"What?"
"Today is Valentine's Day. It's an Old Earth holiday for--for lovers." A little while went by before he realized he'd stopped talking again and was just enjoying the reaction on Clark's face instead. He'd have to get used to that. "Chocolate was the traditional gift. But I couldn't scrounge any up. I don't have that much to give you," he said. He reached across the table and took Clark's hand, brushing a finger across the knuckles, feeling each fine hair against his skin. It was the first time, he thought. The first time Bruce had ever touched Clark like this.
"This," Clark said, tightening his fingers slightly. "This is all I need."
They held hands through the meal, Bruce playfully feeding Clark French fries. Not letting go.
And that was Bruce and Clark's first date.
: : :
Their second date was two weeks later, fitted into two hectic schedules like a gem into a setting. The only time that worked was early morning, so they were walking in the park at six, sun just starting to touch the frost on the ground and blaze it silver. Clark's gloves were practically nothing but holes and Bruce's weren't much better; as they walked, Bruce took his hand and matched up the holes so that he could feel Clark's skin against his, warm as hope.
"Luthor keeps you pretty close," Bruce observed.
"I remind him of...someone he used to know."
"Someone he didn't like?"
A wry twist to the gentle mouth; Bruce tore his eyes away eventually. "Apparently."
"You remind me of someone I used to know, too."
"Someone you didn't like?"
Bruce tightened his grip. "Quite the opposite."
"Is that why you're--" Clark lifted their interlocked hands. "--here?"
Bruce stopped and faced him, putting his free hand on Clark's shoulder. "I'm here because I like you. The past is the past, Clark. You're the reason I'm here."
He thought he knew Clark well, and yet he was still surprised when Clark suddenly leaned in to kiss him, eager and clumsy and smiling. Clark's nose collided with his mouth and they both recoiled, Clark clapping a hand over his nose. "I'm sorry!" he said, his voice muffled. "I just--I just wanted to--"
Bruce pulled his hand away and leaned in for a kiss, soft and sweet, a promise of more. "I did too," he said.
: : :
For a month after that kiss, Bruce Wayne didn't visit Metropolis. He dated a procession of the most attractive men and women in Gotham--not that Gotham had much of a social circle yet--and seemed to forget about Clark entirely.
At night he roamed the city as Batman in order to avoid seeing his own empty bed, to bury the desire to see Clark down deep inside. A seed, waiting for spring.
Clark made no attempt to contact him. To all public eyes, it was a brief flirtation for both of them. Luthor's communications with Bruce contained a puzzled edge.
Good.
: : :
In late March, Bruce Wayne bumped into Clark Kent at a public function in Metropolis. "Oh," he said softly as Cat Grant introduced them. "I know Mr. Kent."
The two spent all night talking, their old flirtation clearly rekindled. "Why haven't we been in contact?" Bruce asked as if amazed, while Luthor watched in baffled annoyance.
"We've both been busy, I guess," said Clark, smiling.
Bruce took his hand and raised it to his lips. "From now on, let's make more time for each other."
"I believe I can fit you into my busy schedule."
Bruce didn't let go of Clark's hand. "How about tomorrow?"
"I can be free tomorrow."
: : :
Their third date. This time they ended up making out on a park bench in the damp twilight, the air still caught between winter and spring. People walking by averted their eyes politely, but no one confronted them.
It was a free world, after all.
"I missed you. I missed you so much," Bruce whispered into the kiss, and Clark's fingers tangled in the hair curling at the back of his neck almost shyly. Bruce slipped his muffler aside a couple of inches and kissed his neck, and Clark's breath steamed around them as he exhaled sharply. Bruce's palm was resting on Clark's hipbone, he could feel the muscles even through the thick pants, and Clark shifted sideways a fraction almost involuntarily. Bruce ached to strip off all those silly layers of wool and denim--it wasn't like Clark would feel the cold--but instead he moved his hand slightly away from the tempting warmth. "We're not going to rush this," he whispered as Clark blinked at him. "We're going to take it slow." He dropped kisses on each of Clark's eyebrows. "Impeccably conventional in every way." He was going to say more but Clark licked his lips and of course Bruce had to kiss him again.
"Oh--oh God," stammered Clark when the kiss broke again. "This is how I've wanted you, like this, so beautiful and free." He lifted Bruce's chin and kissed his throat, the spot where the silver collar had rested for so long. "Free." His tongue flicked against Bruce's Adam's apple and the March cold seemed to vanish entirely. He was half-straddling Clark by the time the other man pulled away, his smile mischievous.
"What happened to impeccably conventional?" asked Clark, and Bruce made a growling sound in his throat but settled back beside him, resting one hand on his knee.
They could have sat like that for a while, but Clark suddenly tilted his head to one side as if hearing something. Standing up, he dragged Bruce toward some evergreen bushes. "Cover for me," he whispered in Bruce's ear, and then there was a burst of wind and Bruce found himself on his hands and knees on slushy ground under a yew hedge, alone.
Shrugging, he rustled the hedge dramatically. "Oh, Clark, mmmmm!" he added for good effect and any passers-by. "Oh, I just can't keep my hands off you, you gorgeous man...oh yes, right here, kiss me again, my love..."
The hedge rustled again and Clark was sitting beside him on the muddy ground, looking rather scandalized and buttoning his top shirt-button over a glimpse of blue. "You didn't have to act so loudly," he hissed.
"Who said I was acting?" Bruce rejoined.
Five minutes later they scrambled out of the bushes with their clothes muddy and Clark blushing madly.
"Who knew dating could be so much fun?" Bruce observed to the air.
: : :
Their fourth date they made it all the way back to Clark's apartment. Bruce caught glimpses of it from the corners of his vision--it looked sparse and almost barren--but most of his concentration was taken up with getting Clark undressed. His hands seemed to be shaking, he noted with a portion of his brain, and it was hindering him from undoing buttons. Under Clark's white work shirt was shining blue and red cloth, but he pushed that up almost roughly, that wasn't what he wanted, he wanted the man inside it all, his friend and his comrade. His hands quested over bright skin, memorizing. "I want to know every inch of you," he whispered, half to himself. "I want to spend the rest of my life learning you."
He had Clark's belt buckle undone by the time it hit him something was wrong. He looked up to see Clark's eyes tightly closed behind his glasses, his hands gripping the bedsheets as if he were afraid to let go. Afraid to touch him. "Clark," Bruce murmured. He ran a finger along the zipper of Clark's fly and Clark shifted his hips upward toward the touch, but didn't let go of the sheets.
Bruce slid up to kiss his jaw, the corner of his mouth. Clark kissed him back eagerly. And didn't touch him.
"Clark," Bruce said again, and reached out to take off his glasses. At that, Clark twisted his head away with a stifled sound. "Kal," Bruce said, and the bright blue eyes snapped open at the name, unspoken for so many months. "Kal. Clark." Bruce laid a hand alongside his face. "I want all of you. I love all of you. The past is gone, but Kal is part of you as well. You don't need to..." He gestured a bit helplessly at the fists bunched in the blankets.
Clark turned his face away. "All the words for it," he said, his voice low. "Possess you, take you, make you mine. The wrong words. And so I can't...I can't..." He looked at Bruce, his eyes bleak. "It's all...wrong. I'm--"
"No." Bruce put all the finality and assurance he could manage into the one syllable. "No." He kissed Clark's cheek, laid down beside him. "We can do this. Just..." He smiled into Clark's hair. "Just maybe not tonight."
Some of the tension went out of Clark's body; he wrapped his arms around Bruce with a long, shaky sigh. "So what do we do?"
"We keep dating. We take it slow. And for tonight... Well, tonight we hold each other and are damn glad we're alive and together, no matter what."
"No matter what," Clark echoed him. Only the slightest question lifted the end of his words, but Bruce answered it as he settled against him, his voice firm:
"No matter what."
: : :
Three more dates, as spring began to soften the world. In mid-April, Bruce came by the Planet again. No one looked up as he came in; they were all engrossed in staring at something Jimmy Olsen was holding in his shaking hands.
"See, I was--I was--" his voice cracked and he swallowed and started again, "I was trying to get a shot of Luthor's yacht from the cliff, and I...maybe I was leaning out too far, and the cliff gave way. And then there was this--" He waved his arms wildly, "--WHOOSH, and I was at the bottom, safe. I didn't see anything, but when I checked my camera--"
Lois shot Perry White a look. "Our elusive no-one-can-prove-it phantom."
Perry nodded. "But now we've got the proof."
The face in Jimmy's photograph was blurred--a glimpse of dark hair, a hint of blue eyes--but the golden crest on his chest was distinct.
"Luthor will be furious," Lois muttered.
"Maybe we shouldn't run it," Jimmy said nervously.
"And maybe we should," Perry said. "This is news. Big news. And maybe..." his eyes glinted, "...maybe the people of Metropolis should know that some of their good fortune is coming from a man who was brave enough to stay behind and be hunted as an outlaw to help them."
"It doesn't seem very brave to go...go sneaking around like that," Clark pointed out, entering the conversation for the first time. "How can you be sure he's got good motivations?"
Lois rounded on him, glaring up. "All signs point to this being Kal-El, a Kryptonian who fought on our side, who turned against his own people to serve us. Have you met him, Clark? Well, I have," she went on as Clark stammered something, "And he's a good man." She jabbed an angry finger at his chest and he blinked down at it, alarmed. "He deserves our support. And he'll never get it if people don't know about him." She looked at Perry. "I say we run it."
Bruce stepped forward, clearing his throat, and everyone looked at him in surprise. "I haven't seen Kal-El since the war ended. But if that really is him, he's asking for trouble, staying behind."
Lois's eyes traveled down to Bruce's hands. "What in heaven's name is that?" Bruce glanced down at the bouquet in his hands: a chaotic handful of dandelions, Queen Anne's Lace, black-eyed Susans, lavender milkweed and clover. "Have you brought Clark a bunch of weeds?"
"Not weeds." Clark's eyes were on the flowers. He lifted his gaze to Bruce's eyes, smiling. "They're the first spring wildflowers from the fields of Gotham."
"Yes," Bruce said, meeting his gaze. "Come to Gotham and see them with me."
"Go on," Perry White growled, waving an annoyed hand, his eyes still on the picture. "You're useless for hours after he stops by anyway." He pointed at Clark without looking at him. "But I want a story on Gotham's rebuilding on my desk by the end of the weekend."
Clark reached out and took the bright riot of flowers from Bruce. "I'd love to come to Gotham."
The conversation around the photograph started up again as they reached the elevator. "The last Kryptonian," Lois mused. "He must be so lonely."
Clark's eyes were still locked on Bruce's. He smiled.
"What are we going to call him?" they heard Jimmy say as the doors opened. "I'd hate to hear what Luthor would want us to use. And we can't just call him 'The Last Kryptonian.'" The doors slid shut on his words: "I mean, he's not like...he's more than that.
"He's super..."
: : :
The ruins of Wayne Manor were a faint shadow in the dark. The grass was shining with dew under the moonlight, violets and clover crushed sweetly under their bodies. Bruce drew a hand down the expanse of Clark's skin, stopping at his hip bone, cool and bare. Clark's eyes were bright in moonlight, the glasses discarded, both of them stripped down to nothing but skin and light and need. "I have no idea what I'm doing," Bruce confessed, hearing laughter trembling under his voice. "Alfred was no help on this topic. And I didn't--I didn't want to learn with anyone but you."
Clark drew a long, shaking breath, then reached out and gathered Bruce close to his side, his hands exploring--hesitantly at first, then more boldly. Silver light all around them, the scent of grass and flowers and earth, warming with the spring, blooming. "It's impossible," Bruce whispered, and Clark blinked at him, puzzled. "You can't possess me, you can't own me; but we can share this, all of this. This--it could never make me anything but more free. More my own."
He rolled over with a sudden shifting motion, until Clark was on his back, his dark hair tangled among the clover. Clark made a hoarse sound as Bruce touched him, his own hands coaxing and caressing in turn. "Free," he whispered as if it were the most erotic word in any language, breathing the word into Bruce's hair, his skin, his mouth.
Clark's back was against the earth, Bruce's back to the stars, their hands clumsy and awkward and gentle, giving and sharing joy.
Free.
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce, Lex Luthor, Selina Kyle, the Planet staff and more.
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and conquer its people.
Warnings: None needed
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5000
Summary: Four months in Metropolis and Gotham, as winter turns slowly to spring.
The city lay in the icy moonlight, quiet for a brief moment. Her protector crouched on the ruined walls that had been the El plantation and looked out across it.
Gotham was a tent city now, the thin fabric of the shelters shivering in the cold wind. Every day new refugees arrived, people turned away from the bright walls of Metropolis, people drawn to the shadows of Gotham. Starving, desperate people, destitute but for the rags on their backs. The dregs of the earth, their eyes bleak, searching for a new life somewhere.
Gotham turned no one away.
It was a dangerous place, full of dangerous people. And yet it was full of hope as well, and promise. And over Gotham brooded the spirit of the Bat, and her people knew that his dark wings sheltered them.
The Bat moved through Gotham like a shadow, watching over his people.
He was on the bridge to the mainland when another shadow detached itself from the darkness and landed soundlessly on the rusted girder beside him. "I have a message for you from the Lord of Metropolis," Selina's voice came from the blackness.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he growled, and she chuckled in delight.
"Oh, very well. I have a message for Bruce Wayne from the Lord of Metropolis. Would you be a sweetheart and pass it on to him, Tall Dark Stranger?"
"What is it?"
"Lex Luthor would like to meet with Bruce Wayne about trade agreements, arrangements between the two cities. To put it bluntly: Metropolis has technology, Gotham has land for growing crops. He believes that you could each benefit each other." A sideways glance at him that he didn't acknowledge. "And speaking of benefits, I met rather a handsome man in Smallville a few days ago. Clark Kent." She waited for a reaction and sighed ostentatiously when there was none. "He traveled back to Metropolis with us. It seems he'll be working at the Daily Planet from now on. A nice boy, very sweet, if a little naive. You really should come to Metropolis and meet him sometime."
A gust of wind swirled the dark figure's cape for a moment. "You can tell Lex that--"
"Oh, I'm afraid you'll have to tell him yourself," Selina purred. "I won't be going back to Metropolis."
He looked at her directly for the first time. "You won't? But you could be--"
"The Lady of Metropolis, yes," she said. She yawned, putting up a hand to delicately cover her mouth. "How do I say this? Metropolis was a bit...dull for my tastes. I prefer to work somewhere a little more...rough and tumble." Her eyes glinted laughter. "I think I'll be staying here."
"You would give up control of Metropolis to become a common thief?"
Selina snorted. "Come now. Do you honestly think I would merely trade one set of fetters for another? Lex is a dear, of course, but I've come to rather cherish my freedom." She held out one leather-gloved hand in front of her. "I stayed long enough to locate and...borrow some useful technology." She flexed her fingers and five diamond-sharp claws glittered; another motion and they were gone again. "Lex can consider it alimony if he ever misses it."
Bruce was frowning. "I won't let you prey on my people."
Selina pouted theatrically, swishing her whip. "Oh, don't be silly. I promise I'll only steal from people who really deserve it." She looked at the moonlit tents with a small moue of disappointment. "I'm sure eventually there'll be someone in Gotham wealthy enough to steal from." An impish smile. "Until then, I do believe I'll just enjoy being free." With a sudden backflip, she was on a higher girder. A quick series of cartwheels and she was gone into the night, her laughter trailing back to him.
"Just what I needed," he grumbled to himself, but his heart wasn't quite in it. He looked to the east, where the horizon was just starting to gray. Soon he would head back to his tent. Alfred would have coffee ready. And he would start to plan his trip to Metropolis.
Clark, he thought, his heart lifting with the dawn for a moment.
There was a cry from the shadows, an unknown woman's voice raised in fear, a man's growling threat.
Batman swooped down into Gotham like an avenging angel.
: : :
"And to your right you can see the groundbreaking for what will soon become the finest hospital on Earth." Mercy Graves waved a bored hand toward the construction site. She wasn't the most enthusiastic tour conductor, but Bruce Wayne's mind was elsewhere anyway. As they approached a low, concrete-block building, he saw the neatly hand-lettered sign on the door: Daily Planet.
"Would you like to see Metropolis's newspaper?" Mercy asked. Her eyes were sharp, and he kept his face expressionless.
"If you'd like," he said. "I'm hoping there'll be a newspaper in Gotham soon, and it might be nice to get some tips."
"Right this way, then." She waved him inside.
To say the newspaper's offices were sparse would be an understatement; a few chairs and desks scattered around the room, stacks of paper everywhere. Bruce glanced around the room, keeping his glance impersonal, it wouldn't do to look avid, to look like he was eager to see--
There were a few people in the room, but none of them were the one he wanted to see. Bruce shook Perry White's hand, was introduced to a red-headed kid and a striking blonde woman--"We've got a few more staff than this, but they're out in the field right now"--and let Mercy steer him away and to some of the other sights of Metropolis.
He wasn't disappointed, he reminded himself. There would be time.
He wasn't disappointed.
They were passing by another construction site--for the Luthor Library--when it happened: a piece of scaffolding gave way and a worker was left hanging from a bent bit of metal, five stories above the ground. His terrified yell was still echoing across the square as both Mercy and Bruce broke into a run, heading toward him. The man scrabbled wildly, then let go--
There was a gust of wind and icy dust that made both of them stagger back, and when it cleared, the man was sitting, bewildered, on a piece of scaffold some distance from where he had let go. "What happened?" barked Mercy as the man climbed down to them.
"I don't know," the man said, still shaking all over. "I let go and then there was this freak wind and...I guess I got tossed over to this scaffold?"
Mercy glared at him, then up at the sky. "We should have left the sun red," she muttered under breath. Then she turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Bruce to help dust the man off.
"Does this kind of thing happen often?"
"Accidents?" The man shrugged, although that hadn't been exactly what Bruce meant. "Luthor scrimps on the equipment," the man said, "--he doesn't have any choice, of course, there just isn't enough to go around. But there've been a lot of falls, stuff failing, you know. It's a miracle no one's gotten killed, I guess."
"Sounds dangerous."
The man grinned. "Any danger's better than being under the boot of the Kryps. Nah, I'm happy to do my part to help Metropolis and Lord Luthor."
Bruce went to rejoin Mercy, who was tapping her foot.
He knew it was hopeless, but he couldn't help looking up at the sky.
An hour later he had finally seen all the sights and found himself shaking Luthor's hand. As usual, Luthor pressed as hard as he could. Bruce smiled at him. "Your city is truly a shining example to us all," he said.
"Skip the flattery, Wayne," retorted Luthor. "You have things I need, I have things you need. Let's get down to business. Oh," he added as Bruce started to pull up a seat at the large mahogany table, "One more thing." He snapped his fingers in the air, and the door opened.
Clark Kent came into the room.
"Kent works for the Planet," Luthor said as Bruce kept his face infinitely casual. "He'll be doing a story on our negotiations. Have you two met?" His eyes were watching Bruce's face keenly.
Clark was hunched over in a suit a couple of sizes too large. He was blinking rapidly behind the thick glasses, a nervous motion that made him look timid and cowed.
Bruce put out his hand. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. I'm Bruce Wayne. Nice to meet you."
Clark looked faintly surprised. "But we've met, Mr. Wayne." When Bruce continued to look blank, he prompted, "In Smallville? You were there a week? I showed you around? My name's Clark Kent."
Bruce shook his head thoughtfully. "I met a lot of people. Busy time. You don't ring a bell."
Now Clark looked annoyed, a bit petulant. "You stayed at my parents' house!"
Bruce snapped his fingers in revelation. "That's right! The Kents! Nice folks." He squinted at Clark. "Didn't you have a goatee or something back then?" he asked, gesturing at his chin. Clark shook his head. "Huh. I'm sorry, I just can't place you. Give me some time and I'm sure it'll come back to me."
He held out his hand again and Clark shook it, the vexed expression lingering on his face. "Nice to meet you too," Clark mumbled. His hand was warm and his grip strong, but he didn't hold onto Bruce's hand for an instant longer than appropriate.
"You should be careful of Mr. Wayne, Kent," said Luthor. "He's a dangerous man. Why, I do believe he's stolen my beloved Selina away from me." His eyes were sad, the tragic jilted lover. The people of Metropolis would eat that up, Bruce thought.
"Actually," he said cheerfully, "I believe it was Gotham that stole her heart, not me." Luthor's lips thinned slightly, but he didn't continue the argument.
Bruce sat down at the table, focusing all his attention on Lex Luthor. Not once did he look at the other man in the room. They were virtual strangers, meeting for the first time, unimportant to each other. Yet Bruce could feel him, like a lodestone magnetizing all his blood, drawing his soul toward him.
They didn't even say goodbye to each other after the meeting. Luthor looked a bit disappointed as Kent left the room without so much as a glance at Bruce, scribbling on his notebook. Bruce did not follow the other man with his eyes.
When he got back to Gotham late that night, he went to Alfred's tent. "I need your help," he said as Alfred blinked at him in the dim lantern light. "I need to know how people did it in the old times."
"Did what, sir?" asked a baffled Alfred.
"Courtship. Wooing. Dating. I need to know how to do it," Bruce said impatiently. "How to do it absolutely correctly."
: : :
Perry White looked up as Bruce entered the Planet offices two weeks later. "Ah, Mr. Wayne," he said.
"Mr. White," Bruce responded, nodding. "Thanks for letting me come down and take a look at how things are run here."
Perry led him over to a table where Lois Lane and Clark Kent were arguing over the wording of a headline. "I still think it should be 'Lanterns' Triumphant Return,'" Lois said, tapping the paper on the desk in front of them.
"Lois," sighed Clark, "You know it has to be something more like 'Luthor Welcomes Lanterns Home.'" He hadn't looked up when Bruce entered. "In the story we can--"
"No one will read the story with a propagandistic headline like that!" Lois stormed. "Clark, are you a man or a mouse?"
"Uh..."
"Lois, Clark. Stop bickering and say hello to Bruce Wayne, here from Gotham to pick up some tips on how to run a ship-shape newspaper full of hard-working, respectful employees. For some unknown reason, he decided to stop by here."
Lois laughed and held out her hand to Bruce. "Lois Lane. You probably don't remember me, but I saw you here and there...before."
"Of course I remember you," Bruce said, raising her hand briefly to his lips. She rolled her eyes and reclaimed it as he turned to Clark. "And you are..."
"Clark Kent," Clark said, holding out his hand. "We met briefly a couple of weeks ago. I covered your meeting with Luthor."
"Ah yes," Bruce said. "I remember now."
"Kent," snapped Perry, "Show Wayne around. I've got work to do."
Clark gave Bruce a tour of the offices, pointing out different types of work being done. The red-haired kid from Bruce's last visit bounded up and asked if Clark wanted to grab some sandwiches over lunch break. "Sure, Jimmy. Would you like to come along?" he said politely, turning to Bruce.
"I'd love to," Bruce said offhandedly, as if he had nothing better to do.
They ate sandwiches on a park bench and threw bread to the pigeons while Jimmy chattered almost non-stop about the new camera he'd found in a demolished building that would probably even work with some fixing. They sat side by side and said almost nothing to each other.
It was freezing cold and Bruce hardly even noticed.
: : :
Two more weeks went by.
Bruce Wayne was in Metropolis again on some small business trip when he ran into Clark Kent once more--an amazing coincidence, he just happened to be picking up a coffee from the convenience store that, as it turned out, Clark stopped by every day on the way home from work.
"Dent, isn't it? Clark Dent?"
Clark smiled, curling his hands around the styrofoam cup of cheap coffee. "Kent, actually. But I'm sure you'll get it right eventually if we keep running into each other like this."
Bruce took a sip of the coffee, grimaced. "This stuff is terrible. Toss it and I'll buy you a better one down the street."
They sat and talked over coffee for a couple of hours, discussing work and the reconstruction of their cities. They didn't talk about their pasts much--but then, very few people talked about their lives before. They looked forward, not back.
Bruce looked forward.
"I need to head back to Gotham," he said as evening settled over the city. "But I'd..." He paused and looked away from Clark's eyes for a moment. "I'd like to see you again. Take you to dinner, maybe?"
"I'd like that," said Clark simply. "I would."
: : :
Three days later, they were at dinner, sitting in a cheap burger joint and sharing a packet of fries. Clark was laughing as Bruce told him about his tent blowing over in a windstorm, gesturing to indicate his belongings flying everywhere. "You could live in better lodgings," Clark said. "You can afford it."
"Not until the last of Gotham's people have housing," Bruce said. "Besides, I like roughing it."
"It sounds fun."
Bruce was going to say something, but forgot it entirely at the affectionate laughter in Clark's eyes. They just looked at each other across the table for a moment, the food untouched, the rest of the room ignored. "I wish I had some chocolate," Bruce said.
"What?"
"Today is Valentine's Day. It's an Old Earth holiday for--for lovers." A little while went by before he realized he'd stopped talking again and was just enjoying the reaction on Clark's face instead. He'd have to get used to that. "Chocolate was the traditional gift. But I couldn't scrounge any up. I don't have that much to give you," he said. He reached across the table and took Clark's hand, brushing a finger across the knuckles, feeling each fine hair against his skin. It was the first time, he thought. The first time Bruce had ever touched Clark like this.
"This," Clark said, tightening his fingers slightly. "This is all I need."
They held hands through the meal, Bruce playfully feeding Clark French fries. Not letting go.
And that was Bruce and Clark's first date.
: : :
Their second date was two weeks later, fitted into two hectic schedules like a gem into a setting. The only time that worked was early morning, so they were walking in the park at six, sun just starting to touch the frost on the ground and blaze it silver. Clark's gloves were practically nothing but holes and Bruce's weren't much better; as they walked, Bruce took his hand and matched up the holes so that he could feel Clark's skin against his, warm as hope.
"Luthor keeps you pretty close," Bruce observed.
"I remind him of...someone he used to know."
"Someone he didn't like?"
A wry twist to the gentle mouth; Bruce tore his eyes away eventually. "Apparently."
"You remind me of someone I used to know, too."
"Someone you didn't like?"
Bruce tightened his grip. "Quite the opposite."
"Is that why you're--" Clark lifted their interlocked hands. "--here?"
Bruce stopped and faced him, putting his free hand on Clark's shoulder. "I'm here because I like you. The past is the past, Clark. You're the reason I'm here."
He thought he knew Clark well, and yet he was still surprised when Clark suddenly leaned in to kiss him, eager and clumsy and smiling. Clark's nose collided with his mouth and they both recoiled, Clark clapping a hand over his nose. "I'm sorry!" he said, his voice muffled. "I just--I just wanted to--"
Bruce pulled his hand away and leaned in for a kiss, soft and sweet, a promise of more. "I did too," he said.
: : :
For a month after that kiss, Bruce Wayne didn't visit Metropolis. He dated a procession of the most attractive men and women in Gotham--not that Gotham had much of a social circle yet--and seemed to forget about Clark entirely.
At night he roamed the city as Batman in order to avoid seeing his own empty bed, to bury the desire to see Clark down deep inside. A seed, waiting for spring.
Clark made no attempt to contact him. To all public eyes, it was a brief flirtation for both of them. Luthor's communications with Bruce contained a puzzled edge.
Good.
: : :
In late March, Bruce Wayne bumped into Clark Kent at a public function in Metropolis. "Oh," he said softly as Cat Grant introduced them. "I know Mr. Kent."
The two spent all night talking, their old flirtation clearly rekindled. "Why haven't we been in contact?" Bruce asked as if amazed, while Luthor watched in baffled annoyance.
"We've both been busy, I guess," said Clark, smiling.
Bruce took his hand and raised it to his lips. "From now on, let's make more time for each other."
"I believe I can fit you into my busy schedule."
Bruce didn't let go of Clark's hand. "How about tomorrow?"
"I can be free tomorrow."
: : :
Their third date. This time they ended up making out on a park bench in the damp twilight, the air still caught between winter and spring. People walking by averted their eyes politely, but no one confronted them.
It was a free world, after all.
"I missed you. I missed you so much," Bruce whispered into the kiss, and Clark's fingers tangled in the hair curling at the back of his neck almost shyly. Bruce slipped his muffler aside a couple of inches and kissed his neck, and Clark's breath steamed around them as he exhaled sharply. Bruce's palm was resting on Clark's hipbone, he could feel the muscles even through the thick pants, and Clark shifted sideways a fraction almost involuntarily. Bruce ached to strip off all those silly layers of wool and denim--it wasn't like Clark would feel the cold--but instead he moved his hand slightly away from the tempting warmth. "We're not going to rush this," he whispered as Clark blinked at him. "We're going to take it slow." He dropped kisses on each of Clark's eyebrows. "Impeccably conventional in every way." He was going to say more but Clark licked his lips and of course Bruce had to kiss him again.
"Oh--oh God," stammered Clark when the kiss broke again. "This is how I've wanted you, like this, so beautiful and free." He lifted Bruce's chin and kissed his throat, the spot where the silver collar had rested for so long. "Free." His tongue flicked against Bruce's Adam's apple and the March cold seemed to vanish entirely. He was half-straddling Clark by the time the other man pulled away, his smile mischievous.
"What happened to impeccably conventional?" asked Clark, and Bruce made a growling sound in his throat but settled back beside him, resting one hand on his knee.
They could have sat like that for a while, but Clark suddenly tilted his head to one side as if hearing something. Standing up, he dragged Bruce toward some evergreen bushes. "Cover for me," he whispered in Bruce's ear, and then there was a burst of wind and Bruce found himself on his hands and knees on slushy ground under a yew hedge, alone.
Shrugging, he rustled the hedge dramatically. "Oh, Clark, mmmmm!" he added for good effect and any passers-by. "Oh, I just can't keep my hands off you, you gorgeous man...oh yes, right here, kiss me again, my love..."
The hedge rustled again and Clark was sitting beside him on the muddy ground, looking rather scandalized and buttoning his top shirt-button over a glimpse of blue. "You didn't have to act so loudly," he hissed.
"Who said I was acting?" Bruce rejoined.
Five minutes later they scrambled out of the bushes with their clothes muddy and Clark blushing madly.
"Who knew dating could be so much fun?" Bruce observed to the air.
: : :
Their fourth date they made it all the way back to Clark's apartment. Bruce caught glimpses of it from the corners of his vision--it looked sparse and almost barren--but most of his concentration was taken up with getting Clark undressed. His hands seemed to be shaking, he noted with a portion of his brain, and it was hindering him from undoing buttons. Under Clark's white work shirt was shining blue and red cloth, but he pushed that up almost roughly, that wasn't what he wanted, he wanted the man inside it all, his friend and his comrade. His hands quested over bright skin, memorizing. "I want to know every inch of you," he whispered, half to himself. "I want to spend the rest of my life learning you."
He had Clark's belt buckle undone by the time it hit him something was wrong. He looked up to see Clark's eyes tightly closed behind his glasses, his hands gripping the bedsheets as if he were afraid to let go. Afraid to touch him. "Clark," Bruce murmured. He ran a finger along the zipper of Clark's fly and Clark shifted his hips upward toward the touch, but didn't let go of the sheets.
Bruce slid up to kiss his jaw, the corner of his mouth. Clark kissed him back eagerly. And didn't touch him.
"Clark," Bruce said again, and reached out to take off his glasses. At that, Clark twisted his head away with a stifled sound. "Kal," Bruce said, and the bright blue eyes snapped open at the name, unspoken for so many months. "Kal. Clark." Bruce laid a hand alongside his face. "I want all of you. I love all of you. The past is gone, but Kal is part of you as well. You don't need to..." He gestured a bit helplessly at the fists bunched in the blankets.
Clark turned his face away. "All the words for it," he said, his voice low. "Possess you, take you, make you mine. The wrong words. And so I can't...I can't..." He looked at Bruce, his eyes bleak. "It's all...wrong. I'm--"
"No." Bruce put all the finality and assurance he could manage into the one syllable. "No." He kissed Clark's cheek, laid down beside him. "We can do this. Just..." He smiled into Clark's hair. "Just maybe not tonight."
Some of the tension went out of Clark's body; he wrapped his arms around Bruce with a long, shaky sigh. "So what do we do?"
"We keep dating. We take it slow. And for tonight... Well, tonight we hold each other and are damn glad we're alive and together, no matter what."
"No matter what," Clark echoed him. Only the slightest question lifted the end of his words, but Bruce answered it as he settled against him, his voice firm:
"No matter what."
: : :
Three more dates, as spring began to soften the world. In mid-April, Bruce came by the Planet again. No one looked up as he came in; they were all engrossed in staring at something Jimmy Olsen was holding in his shaking hands.
"See, I was--I was--" his voice cracked and he swallowed and started again, "I was trying to get a shot of Luthor's yacht from the cliff, and I...maybe I was leaning out too far, and the cliff gave way. And then there was this--" He waved his arms wildly, "--WHOOSH, and I was at the bottom, safe. I didn't see anything, but when I checked my camera--"
Lois shot Perry White a look. "Our elusive no-one-can-prove-it phantom."
Perry nodded. "But now we've got the proof."
The face in Jimmy's photograph was blurred--a glimpse of dark hair, a hint of blue eyes--but the golden crest on his chest was distinct.
"Luthor will be furious," Lois muttered.
"Maybe we shouldn't run it," Jimmy said nervously.
"And maybe we should," Perry said. "This is news. Big news. And maybe..." his eyes glinted, "...maybe the people of Metropolis should know that some of their good fortune is coming from a man who was brave enough to stay behind and be hunted as an outlaw to help them."
"It doesn't seem very brave to go...go sneaking around like that," Clark pointed out, entering the conversation for the first time. "How can you be sure he's got good motivations?"
Lois rounded on him, glaring up. "All signs point to this being Kal-El, a Kryptonian who fought on our side, who turned against his own people to serve us. Have you met him, Clark? Well, I have," she went on as Clark stammered something, "And he's a good man." She jabbed an angry finger at his chest and he blinked down at it, alarmed. "He deserves our support. And he'll never get it if people don't know about him." She looked at Perry. "I say we run it."
Bruce stepped forward, clearing his throat, and everyone looked at him in surprise. "I haven't seen Kal-El since the war ended. But if that really is him, he's asking for trouble, staying behind."
Lois's eyes traveled down to Bruce's hands. "What in heaven's name is that?" Bruce glanced down at the bouquet in his hands: a chaotic handful of dandelions, Queen Anne's Lace, black-eyed Susans, lavender milkweed and clover. "Have you brought Clark a bunch of weeds?"
"Not weeds." Clark's eyes were on the flowers. He lifted his gaze to Bruce's eyes, smiling. "They're the first spring wildflowers from the fields of Gotham."
"Yes," Bruce said, meeting his gaze. "Come to Gotham and see them with me."
"Go on," Perry White growled, waving an annoyed hand, his eyes still on the picture. "You're useless for hours after he stops by anyway." He pointed at Clark without looking at him. "But I want a story on Gotham's rebuilding on my desk by the end of the weekend."
Clark reached out and took the bright riot of flowers from Bruce. "I'd love to come to Gotham."
The conversation around the photograph started up again as they reached the elevator. "The last Kryptonian," Lois mused. "He must be so lonely."
Clark's eyes were still locked on Bruce's. He smiled.
"What are we going to call him?" they heard Jimmy say as the doors opened. "I'd hate to hear what Luthor would want us to use. And we can't just call him 'The Last Kryptonian.'" The doors slid shut on his words: "I mean, he's not like...he's more than that.
"He's super..."
: : :
The ruins of Wayne Manor were a faint shadow in the dark. The grass was shining with dew under the moonlight, violets and clover crushed sweetly under their bodies. Bruce drew a hand down the expanse of Clark's skin, stopping at his hip bone, cool and bare. Clark's eyes were bright in moonlight, the glasses discarded, both of them stripped down to nothing but skin and light and need. "I have no idea what I'm doing," Bruce confessed, hearing laughter trembling under his voice. "Alfred was no help on this topic. And I didn't--I didn't want to learn with anyone but you."
Clark drew a long, shaking breath, then reached out and gathered Bruce close to his side, his hands exploring--hesitantly at first, then more boldly. Silver light all around them, the scent of grass and flowers and earth, warming with the spring, blooming. "It's impossible," Bruce whispered, and Clark blinked at him, puzzled. "You can't possess me, you can't own me; but we can share this, all of this. This--it could never make me anything but more free. More my own."
He rolled over with a sudden shifting motion, until Clark was on his back, his dark hair tangled among the clover. Clark made a hoarse sound as Bruce touched him, his own hands coaxing and caressing in turn. "Free," he whispered as if it were the most erotic word in any language, breathing the word into Bruce's hair, his skin, his mouth.
Clark's back was against the earth, Bruce's back to the stars, their hands clumsy and awkward and gentle, giving and sharing joy.
Free.