Action and Reaction 8/9: Apokolips
Title: Apokolips
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Green Lantern
Continuity: Comics, covering the events of Justice League #6 ( scans)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Batman comes to Apokolips to rescue Superman.
Word Count: 2700
Notes: Action and Re-Action is a series retelling the new versions of Action Comics and Justice League with a Superman/Batman angle. All chapters and notes on the series available here.
The broken cinders of a million bones crunched and sifted under Bruce Wayne's boots as he ghosted through the fire-lit halls of Darkseid's world. The ground was uncomfortably hot even through the thick soles of his boots, and he didn't dare to pause for long as he made his way deeper into the vast necropolis. There was a stench hanging in the air, cold and rotting in his nostrils, clinging to his clammy skin: a reek of despair and hopelessness. His skin crawled as if it were trying to shake off the very air, and he could feel his steps slowing, lagging despite his urgency. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to move forward into the blood-soaked shadows, toward the center of the ragged maze of iron. He couldn't turn back. The world needed Superman.
Clark needed him.
He had a spare cowl in his belt--useless as armor, but it would at least protect his identity. He knew he should probably pull it on, but pragmatism was outweighed by something else, something irrational and undeniable.
Unmasked, he moved deeper into hell.
He heard it before he saw it: a high, electric hum that flayed the air. Under it were hoarse voices, their words indistinct, but the cruelty and glee in them cuttingly clear. Batman moved closer, his heart pounding, sidling around a corner to peer into a room lit only by a scarlet radiance that bathed the faces of the two men bending over Superman's contorted body.
Superman's muscles were rigid, his unseeing eyes held open by spikes of light, his face locked into a silent scream by glowing lines that fastened to his mouth like a horse's bit.
Bruce managed to tear his eyes away from the sight of Superman bound and suffering to take in the two figures leaning over him. Fury surged in him as he took their measure: neither human, all teeth and claws and numinous malice. One of them ran a jagged hand down Superman's chest, giggling with delight as Clark choked and convulsed under his touch, and Bruce felt an unholy desire to leap forward and throttle him, even to die trying--no, he reminded himself, that wouldn't save Clark. He breathed the corrupted air deeply and tried to will himself to calm once more. He needed a distraction, something to draw away the torturers and give him time--
There was a deep, almost sub-sonic boom, and a chaotically swirling portal opened up behind the torturers, who were flung by a concussion across the room. Bruce held on to the pitted iron of the wall with his fingertips, feeling his body buffeted by the shock wave. Within the portal stood Darkseid, parrying a fierce attack from the Amazon warrior with contemptuous ease, while the other heroes rallied for another attack.
Bruce would have considered it a miracle if he believed in them; as it was he lost no time in leaping forward into the confusion and making his way to the bound figure.
The wires of light piercing Clark's body came away like tissue paper in his hands. He gathered them up in handfuls and they shattered on his gauntlets with a malicious clatter.
"Superman," he rasped in a voice that seemed scraped raw by swallowed screams. He grasped the blue-clad shoulders, shaking them. No response. The sky-blue eyes still were locked on eternity, unseeing. He took the rictus-frozen face in his hands as if trying to smooth the agony from it. "Clark."
: : :
Vile images swirled around Clark, searing his mind and soul: the rotting corpses of his parents shambling toward him; Metropolis soaked with rancid blood; Gotham in flames. A raven's croak of a voice called his name, and Clark could see Bruce's face, haunted and fire-lit, doomed and damned along with him. There was a ring of bruises on his neck, a string of fingerprints like black pearls, and his eyes said that it was Clark who had done this to him, had hurt and betrayed him. It was too much for Clark to bear, and he flung his hand out to dispel the vision, to disperse it like smoke rather than allow Bruce's anguished face to taunt him further. "You're not real," he said. "Leave me to die in peace, you're not--"
His feebly waving hand came up against skin. He could feel the fine strong bones of a jaw under his fingers, the pulse leaping beneath his thumb.
"--Real," he finished, faltering. "You're not. Not here. You can't be."
Bruce leaned into his touch, the weight solid and palpable against his palm. A smile touched his mouth. "I told you I'd save you if I ever had the chance," he murmured, his raw voice barely carrying over the shrieks and clamor of battle.
He turned his head and kissed the palm of Clark's hand, and only then could Clark begin to believe that this was real.
"How are you--How did you--"
Bruce shook his head at the stammered words, his eyes still fixed on Clark's face. "We need you. The world needs Superman." He took a breath. "And I need you. I would go to hell itself to bring you back. I will never abandon you. Never."
Clark blinked up at Bruce's fierce eyes, his form limned with brimstone light, and felt strength and resolve returning to his limbs. However Bruce had gotten here, they were here together, and that was enough. He struggled to sit up, Bruce's arms going around his shoulders. "What's happening--"
His eyes fell on the struggle, Darkseid's implacable form with the other heroes breaking upon it like waves, behind them the portal a circle of cryptic light. He saw a glimmer of Earth's clean golden sunlight on the other side of the portal and felt his eyes kindle into fury.
This time flying was as natural as breathing. He launched himself at the flinty figure who threatened his world.
They grappled there in the portal, Darkseid's arms a vice to crush his heart, impossible colors blazing around them. But his heart couldn't be crushed: Bruce had come for him, his team was here for him, his world needed his help. He heard someone yell "Batman?" and looked over to see a figure in a cowl--no, he realized with a giddy shift of double vision, it was Bruce--running for the portal, and Clark hurled Darkseid from him back into Hell. There was a sound like a thousand doors slamming shut, a glare of white light--
--And Darkseid was gone, the hellscape was gone, they were back on a normal battered city street.
There were people cheering somewhere, their voices a mist of joy. Superman tried to take a step forward and Batman caught him as his legs buckled, supported him. "You came for me," he whispered.
"I owed you one." It was definitely Bruce's voice, rough with pain and emotion.
"Okay," Superman said, as the buzzing in his ears increased and the shouting crowds receded into a strange humming distance. "It's my turn next, then."
And then the world faded away--slowly, gently, into a painless pale silence.
: : :
He woke up to birdsong and rich azure-laced sunlight. He was lying, still fully in costume, in a wide white bed, the headboard made of a dark wood intricately carved with leaves and flowers.
He sat up, catching a glimpse of his startled face in the bureau mirror. Where was he? A more careful look at the headboard revealed a family crest hidden among the woodwork--an ornate "W."
His fingers traced the wood for a moment, touching the curves of the Gothic letter.
A gentle footstep at the door made him turn his head. Bruce's butler--Pennyworth, that was the name--was in the doorway, only one raised eyebrow betraying his surprise. "It's good to see you awake, sir," he said. "Allow me to inform Master Bruce. He'll be up in a moment."
He vanished before Clark could ask any questions, leaving Clark blinking at the closing door.
A moment later and he heard footsteps running on the floor below him. They pelted across wood, then marble, then took the stairs two at a time. A brief pause, and then the door swung open and Bruce strolled into the bedroom, looking so cool and unrushed that Clark couldn't help but smile. "Alfred said you were awake," Bruce noted, wandering over to the bureau and brushing invisible specks of dust from the gleaming mahogany, not meeting Clark's eyes. "I hope you're feeling better."
"You," Clark breathed, and Bruce's head came up at the admiration in his voice, their eyes meeting in the bureau mirror. "What are you?"
Bruce looked away from his gaze, back at the dark wood. "I'm just...someone who wants a chance to make the world a little better," he said. "And who has had a lot of free time and a lot of money," he added wryly.
"You came for me," Clark said, and felt his eyes stinging, his voice breaking shamefully, "I'd given up, I'd lost hope, but you--"
"You? Given up?" All of the playboy ease vanished from Bruce's posture; he strode to the side of the bed and seized Clark's hands, his eyes blazing. "Not you. Never. I knew you'd die first. That's why I had to come for you." He shook his head. "I know you, and I know you never give up. I was hoping--" His voice faltered, "--I was hoping we could...not give up together."
The awkward, limping conclusion dragged a chuckle out of Clark; when Bruce joined in it swelled into a full-blown laugh. Clark held onto Bruce's hands and let honest, infectious laughter cleanse the last remnants of horror from his memory.
"It would be an honor and a pleasure," Clark finally managed, "to never give up with you."
Bruce lifted his hands to his lips for a long moment. Then the focus of his gaze shifted to Clark's chest. "I couldn't get this outfit off of you--to check for injuries, of course, nothing salacious. Besides," he went on with a waggle of eyebrows, "I already saw most of you when you stripped bare in front of all of Metropolis."
Clark felt his cheeks burning. "I didn't have time for modesty," he harrumphed. He cleared his throat and aimed for 'nonchalant.' "Um, how much could you--"
Bruce paused long enough to make Clark turn even redder before sighing and saying, "Nothing below the waist, alas. Such a missed opportunity." He looked thoughtful. "It's a very good thing that I don't have penis anxiety, because based on my ad hoc calculations..." He pursed his lips and tilted his head, musing: "You were about five times the height of the Daily Planet building, and that's nine hundred feet, making you--in relative terms--about forty-five hundred feet tall, which means...it was about the size of a city block?" Bruce whistled admiringly and slid one hand down Clark's arm toward his chest. "Of course, I can't be sure until I know how long the real and non-hypothetical item is..."
"--You weren't really thinking about that while I was fighting Brainiac."
"I am capable of impressive feats of multitasking," Bruce responded blandly. His hand had reached Clark's chest and was wandering lazily across the golden "S." "So to get back to the original topic, how does one remove this delightfully gaudy piece of clothing?" He looked indignant at Clark's expression. "I wish to bathe your wounds, my hero."
He left Clark's side and returned in a moment with a basin of steaming water and a soft cloth, announcing, "Your Florence Nightingale has returned. Now," he leered in a most un-nurselike fashion, "Show me how to take off your clothes."
Clark was getting used to never knowing for certain when Bruce was teasing and when he was serious. "It's apparently something called Kryptonian psionicloth."
"Psionicloth." Bruce nodded, deadpan. "I see. Of course."
"I can control the strands of fabric at a molecular level with my mind." Clark raised his arm and the suit began to unravel from the wrist down, the cloth shimmering out of existence with a sound of tiny crystal bells.
Bruce's eyes widened. Clark started to re-integrate the cloth, and he made a sulky face. "So you're saying your clothes can't come off unless you tell them to?"
"Basically, yes."
Bruce ran a cautious hand along his blue-clad ribs. "Where are you hurt?"
"I'm mostly recovered," Clark said a little breathlessly as supple fingers traced his ribcage, then shifted to the dip of his navel. "But a little to the left is pretty tender still." As Bruce shifted his hand, Clark concentrated, and Bruce's fingers slid effortlessly through the cloth to touch the skin beneath.
Bruce gasped. After hesitating a moment, he dabbled his fingers in the cloth like water. "I can feel the strands," he said. "Like infinitely fine silk between my fingers. Amazing." He put his hand all the way through, resting his palm against Clark's skin. "May I see?"
Clark let the fabric part like a curtain at Bruce's touch to reveal a mottled bruise. "Ah," Bruce said. "Let me." Reaching for the steaming cloth, he sponged the sweat and soot off Clark's skin, and Clark couldn't help a sigh of relief. "Told you I was a good nurse," murmured Bruce as he wrung out the cloth and re-wet it. "I learned from the best."
Deft fingers returned to the gap in Superman's uniform, coaxing at the edges until they unraveled at his touch, cascading backwards to reveal more bruised and scratched skin. As Clark relaxed, the fabric grew more supple and malleable, shifting like sand under Bruce's touch, allowing him to clean all of Clark's torso bit by bit. Clark closed his eyes and relished the feeling, but his dreamy reverie was broken at the sensation of Bruce's mouth pressed against his bare shoulderblade.
"Mm," Bruce murmured as Clark's eyes snapped open. Deft fingers slipped through alien cloth to brush a nipple, and Clark could feel Bruce's smug smile against his skin as he gasped. "How small can you make this uniform?" Bruce mused.
"I plan on mostly keeping it on as briefs under my civilian clothes," said Clark, "But if I want--ah," said Clark as Bruce shifted his mouth to where his fingers had been, "--it can fold down into a little scrap of super-dense cloth and leave me, um, totally naked."
"If you want?" Bruce's voice was amused; his tongue darted out and Clark groaned. "And do you want?"
Clark wanted.
Clark wanted very much indeed.
: : :
Later, lying in each others' arms, Clark could feel Bruce's shoulders shaking against him with muffled laughter. "What is it?" he whispered, nuzzling Bruce's neck.
"A city block?" Bruce's voice was filled with affectionate admiration. "You could have warned me that I was vastly underestimating you."
"Mm," Clark murmured. "Considering how much you let me underestimate you, it seems only fair."
"Well, don't do it again." Bruce's voice was sleepy; he laced his legs through Clark's and pulled him closer. "I know I certainly won't."
Clark picked up the tiny piece of white cloth that was his costume from the nightstand. With a flick of his wrist, it unfolded into a silken sheet that settled down on them like snow. As it touched their skin, colors bled across it: red and blue tangled with dappled black and yellow, patterns chasing and embracing each other across the cloth.
Wrapped in shifting colors, they slept.
---
( Part 9)
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Green Lantern
Continuity: Comics, covering the events of Justice League #6 ( scans)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Batman comes to Apokolips to rescue Superman.
Word Count: 2700
Notes: Action and Re-Action is a series retelling the new versions of Action Comics and Justice League with a Superman/Batman angle. All chapters and notes on the series available here.
The broken cinders of a million bones crunched and sifted under Bruce Wayne's boots as he ghosted through the fire-lit halls of Darkseid's world. The ground was uncomfortably hot even through the thick soles of his boots, and he didn't dare to pause for long as he made his way deeper into the vast necropolis. There was a stench hanging in the air, cold and rotting in his nostrils, clinging to his clammy skin: a reek of despair and hopelessness. His skin crawled as if it were trying to shake off the very air, and he could feel his steps slowing, lagging despite his urgency. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to move forward into the blood-soaked shadows, toward the center of the ragged maze of iron. He couldn't turn back. The world needed Superman.
Clark needed him.
He had a spare cowl in his belt--useless as armor, but it would at least protect his identity. He knew he should probably pull it on, but pragmatism was outweighed by something else, something irrational and undeniable.
Unmasked, he moved deeper into hell.
He heard it before he saw it: a high, electric hum that flayed the air. Under it were hoarse voices, their words indistinct, but the cruelty and glee in them cuttingly clear. Batman moved closer, his heart pounding, sidling around a corner to peer into a room lit only by a scarlet radiance that bathed the faces of the two men bending over Superman's contorted body.
Superman's muscles were rigid, his unseeing eyes held open by spikes of light, his face locked into a silent scream by glowing lines that fastened to his mouth like a horse's bit.
Bruce managed to tear his eyes away from the sight of Superman bound and suffering to take in the two figures leaning over him. Fury surged in him as he took their measure: neither human, all teeth and claws and numinous malice. One of them ran a jagged hand down Superman's chest, giggling with delight as Clark choked and convulsed under his touch, and Bruce felt an unholy desire to leap forward and throttle him, even to die trying--no, he reminded himself, that wouldn't save Clark. He breathed the corrupted air deeply and tried to will himself to calm once more. He needed a distraction, something to draw away the torturers and give him time--
There was a deep, almost sub-sonic boom, and a chaotically swirling portal opened up behind the torturers, who were flung by a concussion across the room. Bruce held on to the pitted iron of the wall with his fingertips, feeling his body buffeted by the shock wave. Within the portal stood Darkseid, parrying a fierce attack from the Amazon warrior with contemptuous ease, while the other heroes rallied for another attack.
Bruce would have considered it a miracle if he believed in them; as it was he lost no time in leaping forward into the confusion and making his way to the bound figure.
The wires of light piercing Clark's body came away like tissue paper in his hands. He gathered them up in handfuls and they shattered on his gauntlets with a malicious clatter.
"Superman," he rasped in a voice that seemed scraped raw by swallowed screams. He grasped the blue-clad shoulders, shaking them. No response. The sky-blue eyes still were locked on eternity, unseeing. He took the rictus-frozen face in his hands as if trying to smooth the agony from it. "Clark."
: : :
Vile images swirled around Clark, searing his mind and soul: the rotting corpses of his parents shambling toward him; Metropolis soaked with rancid blood; Gotham in flames. A raven's croak of a voice called his name, and Clark could see Bruce's face, haunted and fire-lit, doomed and damned along with him. There was a ring of bruises on his neck, a string of fingerprints like black pearls, and his eyes said that it was Clark who had done this to him, had hurt and betrayed him. It was too much for Clark to bear, and he flung his hand out to dispel the vision, to disperse it like smoke rather than allow Bruce's anguished face to taunt him further. "You're not real," he said. "Leave me to die in peace, you're not--"
His feebly waving hand came up against skin. He could feel the fine strong bones of a jaw under his fingers, the pulse leaping beneath his thumb.
"--Real," he finished, faltering. "You're not. Not here. You can't be."
Bruce leaned into his touch, the weight solid and palpable against his palm. A smile touched his mouth. "I told you I'd save you if I ever had the chance," he murmured, his raw voice barely carrying over the shrieks and clamor of battle.
He turned his head and kissed the palm of Clark's hand, and only then could Clark begin to believe that this was real.
"How are you--How did you--"
Bruce shook his head at the stammered words, his eyes still fixed on Clark's face. "We need you. The world needs Superman." He took a breath. "And I need you. I would go to hell itself to bring you back. I will never abandon you. Never."
Clark blinked up at Bruce's fierce eyes, his form limned with brimstone light, and felt strength and resolve returning to his limbs. However Bruce had gotten here, they were here together, and that was enough. He struggled to sit up, Bruce's arms going around his shoulders. "What's happening--"
His eyes fell on the struggle, Darkseid's implacable form with the other heroes breaking upon it like waves, behind them the portal a circle of cryptic light. He saw a glimmer of Earth's clean golden sunlight on the other side of the portal and felt his eyes kindle into fury.
This time flying was as natural as breathing. He launched himself at the flinty figure who threatened his world.
They grappled there in the portal, Darkseid's arms a vice to crush his heart, impossible colors blazing around them. But his heart couldn't be crushed: Bruce had come for him, his team was here for him, his world needed his help. He heard someone yell "Batman?" and looked over to see a figure in a cowl--no, he realized with a giddy shift of double vision, it was Bruce--running for the portal, and Clark hurled Darkseid from him back into Hell. There was a sound like a thousand doors slamming shut, a glare of white light--
--And Darkseid was gone, the hellscape was gone, they were back on a normal battered city street.
There were people cheering somewhere, their voices a mist of joy. Superman tried to take a step forward and Batman caught him as his legs buckled, supported him. "You came for me," he whispered.
"I owed you one." It was definitely Bruce's voice, rough with pain and emotion.
"Okay," Superman said, as the buzzing in his ears increased and the shouting crowds receded into a strange humming distance. "It's my turn next, then."
And then the world faded away--slowly, gently, into a painless pale silence.
: : :
He woke up to birdsong and rich azure-laced sunlight. He was lying, still fully in costume, in a wide white bed, the headboard made of a dark wood intricately carved with leaves and flowers.
He sat up, catching a glimpse of his startled face in the bureau mirror. Where was he? A more careful look at the headboard revealed a family crest hidden among the woodwork--an ornate "W."
His fingers traced the wood for a moment, touching the curves of the Gothic letter.
A gentle footstep at the door made him turn his head. Bruce's butler--Pennyworth, that was the name--was in the doorway, only one raised eyebrow betraying his surprise. "It's good to see you awake, sir," he said. "Allow me to inform Master Bruce. He'll be up in a moment."
He vanished before Clark could ask any questions, leaving Clark blinking at the closing door.
A moment later and he heard footsteps running on the floor below him. They pelted across wood, then marble, then took the stairs two at a time. A brief pause, and then the door swung open and Bruce strolled into the bedroom, looking so cool and unrushed that Clark couldn't help but smile. "Alfred said you were awake," Bruce noted, wandering over to the bureau and brushing invisible specks of dust from the gleaming mahogany, not meeting Clark's eyes. "I hope you're feeling better."
"You," Clark breathed, and Bruce's head came up at the admiration in his voice, their eyes meeting in the bureau mirror. "What are you?"
Bruce looked away from his gaze, back at the dark wood. "I'm just...someone who wants a chance to make the world a little better," he said. "And who has had a lot of free time and a lot of money," he added wryly.
"You came for me," Clark said, and felt his eyes stinging, his voice breaking shamefully, "I'd given up, I'd lost hope, but you--"
"You? Given up?" All of the playboy ease vanished from Bruce's posture; he strode to the side of the bed and seized Clark's hands, his eyes blazing. "Not you. Never. I knew you'd die first. That's why I had to come for you." He shook his head. "I know you, and I know you never give up. I was hoping--" His voice faltered, "--I was hoping we could...not give up together."
The awkward, limping conclusion dragged a chuckle out of Clark; when Bruce joined in it swelled into a full-blown laugh. Clark held onto Bruce's hands and let honest, infectious laughter cleanse the last remnants of horror from his memory.
"It would be an honor and a pleasure," Clark finally managed, "to never give up with you."
Bruce lifted his hands to his lips for a long moment. Then the focus of his gaze shifted to Clark's chest. "I couldn't get this outfit off of you--to check for injuries, of course, nothing salacious. Besides," he went on with a waggle of eyebrows, "I already saw most of you when you stripped bare in front of all of Metropolis."
Clark felt his cheeks burning. "I didn't have time for modesty," he harrumphed. He cleared his throat and aimed for 'nonchalant.' "Um, how much could you--"
Bruce paused long enough to make Clark turn even redder before sighing and saying, "Nothing below the waist, alas. Such a missed opportunity." He looked thoughtful. "It's a very good thing that I don't have penis anxiety, because based on my ad hoc calculations..." He pursed his lips and tilted his head, musing: "You were about five times the height of the Daily Planet building, and that's nine hundred feet, making you--in relative terms--about forty-five hundred feet tall, which means...it was about the size of a city block?" Bruce whistled admiringly and slid one hand down Clark's arm toward his chest. "Of course, I can't be sure until I know how long the real and non-hypothetical item is..."
"--You weren't really thinking about that while I was fighting Brainiac."
"I am capable of impressive feats of multitasking," Bruce responded blandly. His hand had reached Clark's chest and was wandering lazily across the golden "S." "So to get back to the original topic, how does one remove this delightfully gaudy piece of clothing?" He looked indignant at Clark's expression. "I wish to bathe your wounds, my hero."
He left Clark's side and returned in a moment with a basin of steaming water and a soft cloth, announcing, "Your Florence Nightingale has returned. Now," he leered in a most un-nurselike fashion, "Show me how to take off your clothes."
Clark was getting used to never knowing for certain when Bruce was teasing and when he was serious. "It's apparently something called Kryptonian psionicloth."
"Psionicloth." Bruce nodded, deadpan. "I see. Of course."
"I can control the strands of fabric at a molecular level with my mind." Clark raised his arm and the suit began to unravel from the wrist down, the cloth shimmering out of existence with a sound of tiny crystal bells.
Bruce's eyes widened. Clark started to re-integrate the cloth, and he made a sulky face. "So you're saying your clothes can't come off unless you tell them to?"
"Basically, yes."
Bruce ran a cautious hand along his blue-clad ribs. "Where are you hurt?"
"I'm mostly recovered," Clark said a little breathlessly as supple fingers traced his ribcage, then shifted to the dip of his navel. "But a little to the left is pretty tender still." As Bruce shifted his hand, Clark concentrated, and Bruce's fingers slid effortlessly through the cloth to touch the skin beneath.
Bruce gasped. After hesitating a moment, he dabbled his fingers in the cloth like water. "I can feel the strands," he said. "Like infinitely fine silk between my fingers. Amazing." He put his hand all the way through, resting his palm against Clark's skin. "May I see?"
Clark let the fabric part like a curtain at Bruce's touch to reveal a mottled bruise. "Ah," Bruce said. "Let me." Reaching for the steaming cloth, he sponged the sweat and soot off Clark's skin, and Clark couldn't help a sigh of relief. "Told you I was a good nurse," murmured Bruce as he wrung out the cloth and re-wet it. "I learned from the best."
Deft fingers returned to the gap in Superman's uniform, coaxing at the edges until they unraveled at his touch, cascading backwards to reveal more bruised and scratched skin. As Clark relaxed, the fabric grew more supple and malleable, shifting like sand under Bruce's touch, allowing him to clean all of Clark's torso bit by bit. Clark closed his eyes and relished the feeling, but his dreamy reverie was broken at the sensation of Bruce's mouth pressed against his bare shoulderblade.
"Mm," Bruce murmured as Clark's eyes snapped open. Deft fingers slipped through alien cloth to brush a nipple, and Clark could feel Bruce's smug smile against his skin as he gasped. "How small can you make this uniform?" Bruce mused.
"I plan on mostly keeping it on as briefs under my civilian clothes," said Clark, "But if I want--ah," said Clark as Bruce shifted his mouth to where his fingers had been, "--it can fold down into a little scrap of super-dense cloth and leave me, um, totally naked."
"If you want?" Bruce's voice was amused; his tongue darted out and Clark groaned. "And do you want?"
Clark wanted.
Clark wanted very much indeed.
: : :
Later, lying in each others' arms, Clark could feel Bruce's shoulders shaking against him with muffled laughter. "What is it?" he whispered, nuzzling Bruce's neck.
"A city block?" Bruce's voice was filled with affectionate admiration. "You could have warned me that I was vastly underestimating you."
"Mm," Clark murmured. "Considering how much you let me underestimate you, it seems only fair."
"Well, don't do it again." Bruce's voice was sleepy; he laced his legs through Clark's and pulled him closer. "I know I certainly won't."
Clark picked up the tiny piece of white cloth that was his costume from the nightstand. With a flick of his wrist, it unfolded into a silken sheet that settled down on them like snow. As it touched their skin, colors bled across it: red and blue tangled with dappled black and yellow, patterns chasing and embracing each other across the cloth.
Wrapped in shifting colors, they slept.
---
( Part 9)