Heroes of the Squared Circle 39: Rumors
Title: Rumors
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Joker, Harley Quinn, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 2700
Summary: Bruce throws himself into his role as the DCW Champion, while rumors start to circulate about Clark Kent's love life, to his dismay.
It’s probably not too much to say that at times [Rick Rude] seemed to prefer grappling with other underdressed men to any sort of meaningful female embrace. He handled the women offered to him with disregard; only his rivals were able to affect Rude on a primal, emotional level. Conspicuously, the kiss he would lay on female fans and the reverse neckbreaker with which he dispatched his opponents were both called the “Rude Awakening.” --David Shoemaker
“I told Luthor that I could understand if it was time to hand the belt on, but I wanted to turn it over to someone I could respect,” said John Stewart, sticking his hand out.
Bruce still looked rather dazed. “Thank you,” he said, shaking Stewart’s hand.
“Though technically I’m going to lose the belt to Joker. But he’s only going to hold it for a couple of days. And he’s going to cheat, so it doesn’t really count.”
“It totally counts!” sang out Joker from a corner.
“Don’t it bother you that you gotta lose it right away?” Harley asked him, looking up from her dog-eared copy of Serial Killers: The Methods and Madness of Monsters. Pamela Isley was draped across her lap reading Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture.
“Nonsense, my dear,” said Napier. “What does a made-up accolade mean to an artist such as myself? I live only for the reaction of the audience.” Napier was as disturbing and over-the-top as ever since Jason’s “death,” and had used that storyline to great effect, but he had quietly retired Mr. Crowbar. He claimed it was because people were paying more attention to the prop than to him, but Clark suspected it also just wasn’t as much fun anymore. Yet there was a delighted gleam in his eye as he turned to Bruce: "Let's do something fun for our match! You could finally get revenge for your poor broken bird, right?"
Soon he and Bruce were deep in conversation about how best to get the Dark Knight the belt, and Clark wandered off, suppressing a pang of familiar jealousy. No wrestler worked exclusively with another, but every time Bruce got absorbed in a match other than with the Kryptonian, Clark ended up wrestling with an uncomfortable possessive feeling. And now that the Dark Knight was going to be the belt holder...
"That's going to happen a lot more often." Diana's voice was sympathetic as she followed Clark's gaze. "The champion has to be in more matches with more varied opponents, after all."
"I know that," Clark said, shrugging. He met Diana's eyes. "Does it show?"
Diana smiled at him and slugged his shoulder. "Let's go get some coffee."
"Luthor hasn't forgiven either of you for the Zucco affair, you know." Diana took a sip of her drink and grimaced, muttering something about weak American coffee.
"Giving Bruce the most prestigious title in the business is an odd way of punishing him."
"Luthor's main focus is his business. The Dark Knight is his best money-maker right now, he'd be mad not to take advantage of that. But," she added, "Don't think he doesn't gain some pleasure from knowing he's cutting back on your ability to work together. And there's a lot of pressure involved in holding the title. Bruce will be working harder than ever--yes, he'll love it," she said before Clark could say anything, "But the people who care about him will have to make sure he doesn't wear himself out completely." Diana took another sip and sighed. "Someday we will visit Paradise Island and I will introduce you to real coffee," she said wistfully.
"It's really mine," Bruce said with some wonder, holding up the belt to the light. It was a garish monstrosity, a huge disc of gold with a stylized "DC" engraved on it, surrounded by filigree and etched curlicues. It looked entirely out of place in the bland beige living room of his Metropolis apartment--though it was no longer quite so bland or so beige, Clark had to admit. At his urging, Bruce had slowly added some distinctive touches to the featureless box: the action figures on the mantel; the promotional poster from the "Joker's Wild" pay-per-view designed to look like a giant playing card; the flower vase shaped like an oversized penny they had found at a random yard sale and brought home like a trophy. Bruce had even added a hilariously large stuffed Tyrannosaurus Rex from a webcomic he loved without any prompting from Clark.
Everything was outsized, larger than life, and a bit off-kilter, rather like its occupant, and Clark loved spending time there.
"It was a great match," Clark said. "That final moonsault to take out Joker was pure poetry."
"The crowd was really into it," said Bruce, still turning the belt in his hands. "I was proud of it. It was a good match to win the championship with." He touched the gold lightly. "This belt," he murmured. "I saw the match where Wildcat lost this belt to Eclipso. My parents took me."
Clark raised an eyebrow but held his tongue--not foster-father, but parents. Bruce never spoke of his life before Alfred took him in.
"Eclipso hit Grant with the belt when he got it, and it cut his head," Bruce went on, his voice distant. "The blood stained his pale hair. I remember how bright it was. It seemed unreal. It was so unfair that there was almost a...beauty to it all. To his suffering. More than anything, I wanted to win this belt back and make it all right again." He traced one filigree with his index finger, turning and swooping. "And then I went out into the night with my parents."
Clark waited in silence, hardly daring to breathe loudly, but Bruce didn't say anything more. After a moment, he looked up from the hunk of metal and leather in his hands and smiled at Clark. "It's heavier than I imagined." He held it out. "Come here and see."
Clark drew close and took it from him, feeling the weight of it. He reached out and buckled it around Bruce's waist, leaning in to kiss him as he did. "Let's see how you look wearing nothing but the belt," he murmured, and felt Bruce chuckle as he pulled his t-shirt off.
The metal was cold to the touch. Clark breathed across it, watching his breath mist the gold, and felt Bruce shiver. He let his fingers skitter across the huge shining disc and slip to Bruce's pants, undoing the fly and sliding them down until indeed Bruce lay on the couch clad in nothing but the golden belt that covered most of his lower torso.
"I look ridiculous," he complained.
Clark undressed himself and slid onto the couch next to him, pressing close, feeling the metal warming between their bodies, savoring the different kinds of hardness against him. "You look magnificent."
The whorls of raised metal stamped marks on Clark's flesh, fragments of letters and shapes chiseled onto his skin. "They'll fade," Bruce reassured him later, kissing a curved shadow on Clark's hipbone.
Clark traced the marks absently with a finger as they drifted together toward sleep, feeling the echo and the imprint of Bruce's body against his. If they had collided harder, he thought dreamily, if he had crushed Bruce to him, tomorrow there would be bruises there in the shape of Bruce's trophy, proof of their passion written on his body for all to see.
He fell asleep still unsure if it was anxiety or desire that the image aroused in him.
Diana's words about the championship title proved prophetic: Bruce was the hardest worker in the business, and he tapped on reserves of determination and stamina once he was champion. His matches were better than ever, whether he was fighting the Joker, teaming up with Nightwing for a tag team, or cutting promos about vengeance and the night.
He had less time to spend with Clark, and fewer matches against the Kryptonian, but he seemed so alive that Clark couldn't even bring himself to resent it. After the long emptiness in the wake of Jason's departure, Clark took a keen pleasure in watching Bruce light up while planning a match, in feeling his energy when they clashed in the ring--or in bed. Every moment they had together was precious, and Clark savored every one.
That they were fewer meant more time spent with other workers: Dick, Jimmy, Selina. And, more and more, Diana. She told him stories of her siblings and life on the little Greek island where she grew up; they went to museums together on their days off; their morning coffee became something of a ritual. "I had many sisters growing up, but no brothers," she said one day with a look that was almost shy. "When I imagined what a brother would be like, I imagined someone like you."
"I couldn't ask for a better sister," he said in return.
And so it came as something of a shock when one day Pamela Isley waved an iPad in his face while he was working out on the weight machine. "Ohhh," she cooed. "The lovebirds' secret is out!"
Startled, Clark let his weights crash down and grabbed the iPad. But the photo on the front page of huge wrestling dirt sheet wasn't him and Bruce, but him and Diana laughing together at their favorite Baltimore coffee shop. Caught Canoodling! cried the headline.
"You--you know this isn't true, right?" Clark stammered to Luthor a few hours later.
"Clark and I are good friends and not a thing else," said Diana. Her voice was much more confident than Clark's, but her Mediterranean accent was slightly more pronounced, as it sometimes became when she was nervous or angry.
"I am aware of that," said Luthor, putting the iPad back down on his desk. The booker next to him picked it up and started scrolling through the story. "Believe it or not, very few romantic entanglements escape my notice in my own company. And as long as they don't interfere with work, I have no particular problem with them," he added, his expression utterly bland as he met Clark's eyes.
"Boy, we could do a great storyline with this," said the booker holding the iPad. "We could use this as a springboard for a whole long arc. I've always thought the Kryptonian and Wonder Woman would make a great couple, after all: surely only an Amazon is strong enough to satisfy him, right? Could he ever be satisfied with a mere mortal?"
Luthor steepled his fingers and spoke to the booker without taking his eyes from Clark: "Go on, Geoff."
"Well, I'm imagining an angle where the Kryptonian becomes obsessed with Wonder Woman--because he doesn't speak, he can send Brainiac to woo her in his stead, that would be pretty hilarious. It could end with him kidnapping her and forcing her to marry him in the middle of the ring in some kind of dark Kryptonian ritual. Awesome, huh?"
"An intriguing proposal," said Diana. Her accent was notably more pronounced now. "Might I suggest a slight variation on that? Perhaps we could have someone--say, a booker--make this very suggestion in the middle of the ring. Then someone--say, me--could arrive and hit him with a Slamazon--multiple times--for such a presumptuous and imbecilic idea." She tilted her head to the side as if considering. "It risks breaking kayfabe, but I prefer it to the former."
Luthor was smiling very slightly as he watched Clark's face. "No, Geoff," he said to the booker, who now had beads of sweat on his forehead, "I think we'll skip that storyline. But thank you for the description, I found it...very entertaining." He waved a hand at Clark and Diana, dismissing them. "I have no intention of giving any credibility to some dirt sheet's gossip. Get back to putting on a show."
"It could be useful," Bruce said thoughtfully after he came back late from training Tim to their shared hotel room and heard Clark's aggrieved summary of the day.
"Useful? A rumor that Diana and I are an item?"
"Sure." Bruce did a belly-flop onto the bed; he'd taken a shower at the gym and his still-damp hair fell into his eyes slightly. "Distracts from you and I, after all. And be honest, the wedding idea was pretty hilarious. It could have ended with Wonder Woman fighting the Kryptonian off, after all--we really should have more mixed-sex bouts, and Diana's more than up to it."
"Using Diana as a shield--that's just cowardly," Clark blurted out. His stomach felt tight somehow, and his heart was pounding as if he'd just finished a workout.
"Pragmatic," Bruce countered.
"And I don't want to marry Diana, not even in kayfabe! I don't want to marry anyone but--"
"But?" Bruce prompted politely when Clark didn't finish the sentence, rummaging under the pillows. "Have you seen the television remote? It's my turn to control it tonight and I'm not wasting the opportunity."
"But...especially not Diana," Clark finished weakly, fishing the remote out of a pile of dirty socks next to the bed and handing it to him.
Bruce grabbed it and turned on the tv to the Weather Channel, honing in as he usually did on some story about a natural disaster (he found sports "tedious" and anything fictional "unsatisfying"). He lay down, wrapping his legs around Clark's waist, and Clark tried to watch along.
But his heart was hammering and his mouth was dry. I don't want to marry anyone but you still rang in his mind, so clearly that he could hardly believe Bruce couldn't hear it. Astonishing thought, impossible thought!
Yet it was true, he realized. He had never thought it before, and yet here it was, full-blown and undeniable. Shopping at Target, bickering over the remote, complaining about the cable bill or reading each other's favorite childhood books--he wanted all of it with Bruce, all of the banal little things that make up a life together, and he wanted them forever.
And he didn't even know how to say that to Bruce now, and it was entirely his own fault: he had defined their relationship as casual when it began, had shut down every attempt, no matter how tentative, by Bruce to let him in further. I've never even told him I loved him, Clark realized like a punch to the solar plexus. Bruce had never seemed to need those kinds of declarations, had always seemed confident and comfortable with what they had, and Clark had taken advantage of that to stay safe.
Safe from what? As a hurricane lashed the Bahamas on the little television screen, Clark had to admit he had no idea. What was he afraid would change if he let their relationship progress, if he opened his heart more fully to Bruce--if he finally met his family, saw where he grew up? Why did the thought unnerve him so deeply? He had no idea what kind of life Bruce came from, but surely it wasn't that different from his own, after all.
He took a deep breath, watching the tempest-churned waves explode on the rocks, and tried to calm himself down. He hadn't made any irrevocable mistakes. They had a life together already, he reminded himself. If--when--they moved it to another level, it would mean possibly coming out to more people, dealing with the repercussions. It would add a further burden to Bruce at a time when he was already working himself to exhaustion as the champion. Things were going to change--he was going to change--but there was no need to rush. They had plenty of time.
"That's right," said Bruce, sitting up in bed as the show cut to a commercial. "I forgot to mention, I've got some good news."
He punched Clark lightly on the shoulder.
"Remember Bane, from Santa Prisca? Well, he's coming to the States and he suggests we do a big angle about him challenging me, culminating in a rematch in Gotham!"
He grinned and grabbed Clark, wrestling him to the bed as if he couldn't contain his enthusiasm.
"It'll be a great story, don't you think?"
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Joker, Harley Quinn, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 2700
Summary: Bruce throws himself into his role as the DCW Champion, while rumors start to circulate about Clark Kent's love life, to his dismay.
It’s probably not too much to say that at times [Rick Rude] seemed to prefer grappling with other underdressed men to any sort of meaningful female embrace. He handled the women offered to him with disregard; only his rivals were able to affect Rude on a primal, emotional level. Conspicuously, the kiss he would lay on female fans and the reverse neckbreaker with which he dispatched his opponents were both called the “Rude Awakening.” --David Shoemaker
“I told Luthor that I could understand if it was time to hand the belt on, but I wanted to turn it over to someone I could respect,” said John Stewart, sticking his hand out.
Bruce still looked rather dazed. “Thank you,” he said, shaking Stewart’s hand.
“Though technically I’m going to lose the belt to Joker. But he’s only going to hold it for a couple of days. And he’s going to cheat, so it doesn’t really count.”
“It totally counts!” sang out Joker from a corner.
“Don’t it bother you that you gotta lose it right away?” Harley asked him, looking up from her dog-eared copy of Serial Killers: The Methods and Madness of Monsters. Pamela Isley was draped across her lap reading Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture.
“Nonsense, my dear,” said Napier. “What does a made-up accolade mean to an artist such as myself? I live only for the reaction of the audience.” Napier was as disturbing and over-the-top as ever since Jason’s “death,” and had used that storyline to great effect, but he had quietly retired Mr. Crowbar. He claimed it was because people were paying more attention to the prop than to him, but Clark suspected it also just wasn’t as much fun anymore. Yet there was a delighted gleam in his eye as he turned to Bruce: "Let's do something fun for our match! You could finally get revenge for your poor broken bird, right?"
Soon he and Bruce were deep in conversation about how best to get the Dark Knight the belt, and Clark wandered off, suppressing a pang of familiar jealousy. No wrestler worked exclusively with another, but every time Bruce got absorbed in a match other than with the Kryptonian, Clark ended up wrestling with an uncomfortable possessive feeling. And now that the Dark Knight was going to be the belt holder...
"That's going to happen a lot more often." Diana's voice was sympathetic as she followed Clark's gaze. "The champion has to be in more matches with more varied opponents, after all."
"I know that," Clark said, shrugging. He met Diana's eyes. "Does it show?"
Diana smiled at him and slugged his shoulder. "Let's go get some coffee."
"Luthor hasn't forgiven either of you for the Zucco affair, you know." Diana took a sip of her drink and grimaced, muttering something about weak American coffee.
"Giving Bruce the most prestigious title in the business is an odd way of punishing him."
"Luthor's main focus is his business. The Dark Knight is his best money-maker right now, he'd be mad not to take advantage of that. But," she added, "Don't think he doesn't gain some pleasure from knowing he's cutting back on your ability to work together. And there's a lot of pressure involved in holding the title. Bruce will be working harder than ever--yes, he'll love it," she said before Clark could say anything, "But the people who care about him will have to make sure he doesn't wear himself out completely." Diana took another sip and sighed. "Someday we will visit Paradise Island and I will introduce you to real coffee," she said wistfully.
"It's really mine," Bruce said with some wonder, holding up the belt to the light. It was a garish monstrosity, a huge disc of gold with a stylized "DC" engraved on it, surrounded by filigree and etched curlicues. It looked entirely out of place in the bland beige living room of his Metropolis apartment--though it was no longer quite so bland or so beige, Clark had to admit. At his urging, Bruce had slowly added some distinctive touches to the featureless box: the action figures on the mantel; the promotional poster from the "Joker's Wild" pay-per-view designed to look like a giant playing card; the flower vase shaped like an oversized penny they had found at a random yard sale and brought home like a trophy. Bruce had even added a hilariously large stuffed Tyrannosaurus Rex from a webcomic he loved without any prompting from Clark.
Everything was outsized, larger than life, and a bit off-kilter, rather like its occupant, and Clark loved spending time there.
"It was a great match," Clark said. "That final moonsault to take out Joker was pure poetry."
"The crowd was really into it," said Bruce, still turning the belt in his hands. "I was proud of it. It was a good match to win the championship with." He touched the gold lightly. "This belt," he murmured. "I saw the match where Wildcat lost this belt to Eclipso. My parents took me."
Clark raised an eyebrow but held his tongue--not foster-father, but parents. Bruce never spoke of his life before Alfred took him in.
"Eclipso hit Grant with the belt when he got it, and it cut his head," Bruce went on, his voice distant. "The blood stained his pale hair. I remember how bright it was. It seemed unreal. It was so unfair that there was almost a...beauty to it all. To his suffering. More than anything, I wanted to win this belt back and make it all right again." He traced one filigree with his index finger, turning and swooping. "And then I went out into the night with my parents."
Clark waited in silence, hardly daring to breathe loudly, but Bruce didn't say anything more. After a moment, he looked up from the hunk of metal and leather in his hands and smiled at Clark. "It's heavier than I imagined." He held it out. "Come here and see."
Clark drew close and took it from him, feeling the weight of it. He reached out and buckled it around Bruce's waist, leaning in to kiss him as he did. "Let's see how you look wearing nothing but the belt," he murmured, and felt Bruce chuckle as he pulled his t-shirt off.
The metal was cold to the touch. Clark breathed across it, watching his breath mist the gold, and felt Bruce shiver. He let his fingers skitter across the huge shining disc and slip to Bruce's pants, undoing the fly and sliding them down until indeed Bruce lay on the couch clad in nothing but the golden belt that covered most of his lower torso.
"I look ridiculous," he complained.
Clark undressed himself and slid onto the couch next to him, pressing close, feeling the metal warming between their bodies, savoring the different kinds of hardness against him. "You look magnificent."
The whorls of raised metal stamped marks on Clark's flesh, fragments of letters and shapes chiseled onto his skin. "They'll fade," Bruce reassured him later, kissing a curved shadow on Clark's hipbone.
Clark traced the marks absently with a finger as they drifted together toward sleep, feeling the echo and the imprint of Bruce's body against his. If they had collided harder, he thought dreamily, if he had crushed Bruce to him, tomorrow there would be bruises there in the shape of Bruce's trophy, proof of their passion written on his body for all to see.
He fell asleep still unsure if it was anxiety or desire that the image aroused in him.
Diana's words about the championship title proved prophetic: Bruce was the hardest worker in the business, and he tapped on reserves of determination and stamina once he was champion. His matches were better than ever, whether he was fighting the Joker, teaming up with Nightwing for a tag team, or cutting promos about vengeance and the night.
He had less time to spend with Clark, and fewer matches against the Kryptonian, but he seemed so alive that Clark couldn't even bring himself to resent it. After the long emptiness in the wake of Jason's departure, Clark took a keen pleasure in watching Bruce light up while planning a match, in feeling his energy when they clashed in the ring--or in bed. Every moment they had together was precious, and Clark savored every one.
That they were fewer meant more time spent with other workers: Dick, Jimmy, Selina. And, more and more, Diana. She told him stories of her siblings and life on the little Greek island where she grew up; they went to museums together on their days off; their morning coffee became something of a ritual. "I had many sisters growing up, but no brothers," she said one day with a look that was almost shy. "When I imagined what a brother would be like, I imagined someone like you."
"I couldn't ask for a better sister," he said in return.
And so it came as something of a shock when one day Pamela Isley waved an iPad in his face while he was working out on the weight machine. "Ohhh," she cooed. "The lovebirds' secret is out!"
Startled, Clark let his weights crash down and grabbed the iPad. But the photo on the front page of huge wrestling dirt sheet wasn't him and Bruce, but him and Diana laughing together at their favorite Baltimore coffee shop. Caught Canoodling! cried the headline.
"You--you know this isn't true, right?" Clark stammered to Luthor a few hours later.
"Clark and I are good friends and not a thing else," said Diana. Her voice was much more confident than Clark's, but her Mediterranean accent was slightly more pronounced, as it sometimes became when she was nervous or angry.
"I am aware of that," said Luthor, putting the iPad back down on his desk. The booker next to him picked it up and started scrolling through the story. "Believe it or not, very few romantic entanglements escape my notice in my own company. And as long as they don't interfere with work, I have no particular problem with them," he added, his expression utterly bland as he met Clark's eyes.
"Boy, we could do a great storyline with this," said the booker holding the iPad. "We could use this as a springboard for a whole long arc. I've always thought the Kryptonian and Wonder Woman would make a great couple, after all: surely only an Amazon is strong enough to satisfy him, right? Could he ever be satisfied with a mere mortal?"
Luthor steepled his fingers and spoke to the booker without taking his eyes from Clark: "Go on, Geoff."
"Well, I'm imagining an angle where the Kryptonian becomes obsessed with Wonder Woman--because he doesn't speak, he can send Brainiac to woo her in his stead, that would be pretty hilarious. It could end with him kidnapping her and forcing her to marry him in the middle of the ring in some kind of dark Kryptonian ritual. Awesome, huh?"
"An intriguing proposal," said Diana. Her accent was notably more pronounced now. "Might I suggest a slight variation on that? Perhaps we could have someone--say, a booker--make this very suggestion in the middle of the ring. Then someone--say, me--could arrive and hit him with a Slamazon--multiple times--for such a presumptuous and imbecilic idea." She tilted her head to the side as if considering. "It risks breaking kayfabe, but I prefer it to the former."
Luthor was smiling very slightly as he watched Clark's face. "No, Geoff," he said to the booker, who now had beads of sweat on his forehead, "I think we'll skip that storyline. But thank you for the description, I found it...very entertaining." He waved a hand at Clark and Diana, dismissing them. "I have no intention of giving any credibility to some dirt sheet's gossip. Get back to putting on a show."
"It could be useful," Bruce said thoughtfully after he came back late from training Tim to their shared hotel room and heard Clark's aggrieved summary of the day.
"Useful? A rumor that Diana and I are an item?"
"Sure." Bruce did a belly-flop onto the bed; he'd taken a shower at the gym and his still-damp hair fell into his eyes slightly. "Distracts from you and I, after all. And be honest, the wedding idea was pretty hilarious. It could have ended with Wonder Woman fighting the Kryptonian off, after all--we really should have more mixed-sex bouts, and Diana's more than up to it."
"Using Diana as a shield--that's just cowardly," Clark blurted out. His stomach felt tight somehow, and his heart was pounding as if he'd just finished a workout.
"Pragmatic," Bruce countered.
"And I don't want to marry Diana, not even in kayfabe! I don't want to marry anyone but--"
"But?" Bruce prompted politely when Clark didn't finish the sentence, rummaging under the pillows. "Have you seen the television remote? It's my turn to control it tonight and I'm not wasting the opportunity."
"But...especially not Diana," Clark finished weakly, fishing the remote out of a pile of dirty socks next to the bed and handing it to him.
Bruce grabbed it and turned on the tv to the Weather Channel, honing in as he usually did on some story about a natural disaster (he found sports "tedious" and anything fictional "unsatisfying"). He lay down, wrapping his legs around Clark's waist, and Clark tried to watch along.
But his heart was hammering and his mouth was dry. I don't want to marry anyone but you still rang in his mind, so clearly that he could hardly believe Bruce couldn't hear it. Astonishing thought, impossible thought!
Yet it was true, he realized. He had never thought it before, and yet here it was, full-blown and undeniable. Shopping at Target, bickering over the remote, complaining about the cable bill or reading each other's favorite childhood books--he wanted all of it with Bruce, all of the banal little things that make up a life together, and he wanted them forever.
And he didn't even know how to say that to Bruce now, and it was entirely his own fault: he had defined their relationship as casual when it began, had shut down every attempt, no matter how tentative, by Bruce to let him in further. I've never even told him I loved him, Clark realized like a punch to the solar plexus. Bruce had never seemed to need those kinds of declarations, had always seemed confident and comfortable with what they had, and Clark had taken advantage of that to stay safe.
Safe from what? As a hurricane lashed the Bahamas on the little television screen, Clark had to admit he had no idea. What was he afraid would change if he let their relationship progress, if he opened his heart more fully to Bruce--if he finally met his family, saw where he grew up? Why did the thought unnerve him so deeply? He had no idea what kind of life Bruce came from, but surely it wasn't that different from his own, after all.
He took a deep breath, watching the tempest-churned waves explode on the rocks, and tried to calm himself down. He hadn't made any irrevocable mistakes. They had a life together already, he reminded himself. If--when--they moved it to another level, it would mean possibly coming out to more people, dealing with the repercussions. It would add a further burden to Bruce at a time when he was already working himself to exhaustion as the champion. Things were going to change--he was going to change--but there was no need to rush. They had plenty of time.
"That's right," said Bruce, sitting up in bed as the show cut to a commercial. "I forgot to mention, I've got some good news."
He punched Clark lightly on the shoulder.
"Remember Bane, from Santa Prisca? Well, he's coming to the States and he suggests we do a big angle about him challenging me, culminating in a rematch in Gotham!"
He grinned and grabbed Clark, wrestling him to the bed as if he couldn't contain his enthusiasm.
"It'll be a great story, don't you think?"