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“I’m afraid I have bad news. Our host only prepared three rooms for us,” Diana told them when she came back from her talk with the house steward. “We are all going to have to share.”
The assembled members of the Justice League groaned. Clark suppressed a sigh. It wasn’t as if he needed his own room for the night – or even needed sleep, technically – but it had been a long flight to Sector 2682 and they had a week of draining diplomatic talks ahead of them, and he’d been looking forward to having a relaxing evening to himself. To not have any privacy the whole trip was going to be a challenge.
“Twin beds?” Wally said hopefully. Diana shook her head and his face fell. “So we’re sharing beds then. Ugh.”
“Well in that case, I’m definitely sharing with Diana,” Shayera announced.
Diana frowned. “Would you not rather stay with Lantern? I would not mind—”
“Please, Princess,” she said dryly, “you don’t want to give any of these poor men a crisis, do you? You’re staying with me, and that’s that. Shut up, Flash.”
Wally pouted. “I didn’t say anything!”
“Good. Keep it that way.” She turned to John and Wally. “You guys don’t mind sharing, right? And then that just leaves Superman and Batman.”
Shayera looked at them then, expectant. But Clark, hit by a sudden wave of adrenaline, was unhelpfully frozen. Share with Bruce? God, he really didn’t want to do that, that would be so incredibly awkward, just thinking about it was making him anxious—
“You don’t need to do that for our sakes,” Bruce said smoothly, while Clark was still standing there uselessly. “I don’t mind sharing with Flash or Lantern.”
“That’s alright,” John said. “I’m a heavy sleeper. And Flash snores.”
“Why does everyone know that?” Wally whispered sadly.
“Because you keep napping in the canteen,” Shayera said with a smirk. Wally pouted again.
Clark finally found his voice. “Maybe it’s best that I go with Flash, then. I don’t really need to sleep, after all.”
“Oh come on, I’m not that bad—”
“Why do you seem so reluctant to share with Batman?” Diana asked with a frown. “You are friends, are you not? And you have shared before, on multiple occasions.”
“That was years ago,” Clark protested.
She raised an eyebrow. “Things are different now?”
Yes. Yes, things were unbelievably different now. Things were fine between them – good, even – but that was because there were certain lines they didn’t cross, and certain things they didn’t talk about, and Clark was really not looking forward to sharing a room with Bruce and very deliberately not crossing lines and not talking about it—
Clark couldn’t tell them any of that. He swallowed. “No, I guess they’re not.”
Diana turned to Bruce. “Batman?”
“No objections here,” he said. Smoothly, neutrally. Like it really meant nothing to him. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe Clark was just making a big deal out of nothing.
Diana smiled. “Good. Then that’s sorted, then. Get some rest, everyone. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”
The first night was uneventful. The steward showed them to their room and left with a look of silent apology. It was certainly a comfortable enough space: spacious, ensuite bathroom, a bed big enough for two men of their size. As soon as the door was closed and locked behind them, Bruce disappeared off to the bathroom to change. He emerged ten minutes later in slippers and dark silk pajamas, shower-damp hair hanging loose over his forehead. His pale skin was slightly pink from his shower.
“All yours,” he announced.
“Thanks,” Clark said, and went to take his own shower, change, brush his teeth. By the time he returned to the bedroom, Bruce was already in bed with the lights off, lying on the far side with his back to the center so Clark couldn’t see his face. His hair fell in messy clumps across the pillow. Even from across the room, even over the steam wafting out from the bathroom, Clark could smell the distinctive, familiar scent of his body wash, his cologne, his skin.
Clark climbed into bed beside him, heart in his throat.
The last time they’d shared a bed, they’d had sex. Afterwards, Clark had lain beside him, the world feeling fuzzy and pleasant in the wake of it. He’d tipped his head towards Bruce to see that stern profile relaxed, hair a mess, skin glowing with exertion, a soft smile playing about his lips.
He was everything Clark wanted. And Clark had thought to himself, very calmly, that he couldn’t do this anymore.
That smile was etched into his memory, like a scar. As was the way that expression had shuttered, then gone cold, then angry. The words they’d exchanged, bitter and poisonous. Bruce’s snarled dismissal. Clark had gathered his clothes and was gone in seconds.
That was years ago now. He’d never been in Bruce’s bed since. Until now.
Bruce's heartbeat slowed to its normal pattern in sleep after a little over an hour. Exhausted from the trip, Clark followed soon after, despite his lingering anxiety. In his dreams there was comforting touch, warmth pressed against his back, a rough hand on his stomach. The echo of something sweetly familiar. But when he woke up in the morning, the bed was empty. Clark was alone.
The next day followed a predictable pattern. These diplomatic missions always involved a lot of smiling and being polite and paying very close attention to body language and mannerisms and tells. Clark was good at that. It was draining, yes, and it wasn't exactly what he'd describe as fun, but he could do it and do it well. He kept focused on their work all day, and everything felt fine and normal. Even with Bruce. They were both there to do a job, after all.
After dinner and an informal debrief, everyone retired to their rooms. Bruce and Clark went through the same near-silent routine of getting ready for bed as the previous night and silently lay down beside each other. Clark was uncomfortably aware of Bruce’s presence beside him. The bed was large enough that they were at least a foot apart, yet Clark could practically feel the warmth of him all along his left arm. And silent as he was, he was still so loud to Clark’s ears: his deep, even breaths, the steady-slow metronome of his heart beating in his chest. Sounds that had once felt immensely comforting and reassuring now seemed to mock him, inescapable.
Not feeling nearly as tired as the night before, Clark quietly resigned himself to not sleeping tonight.
He lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying and failing to block it all out. He was passively waiting for something to change, some shift, like Bruce falling asleep. But surprisingly, there was no shift in Bruce’s breathing or heartbeat that suggested he’d fallen asleep. An hour passed. Then two hours. Then three.
After nearly four hours of Bruce lying awake beside him, Clark decided to speak up. “Hey, Bruce. Are you…okay?”
There was the slightest shift in Bruce’s breathing, a caught inhale. A beat before he spoke, voice rough. “Why do you ask."
“Because you’re still awake.”
“I’m fine. It’s just insomnia.”
“You didn’t used to have insomnia,” Clark muttered.
Because they were sharing a mattress, Clark could feel Bruce stiffen at that. Suddenly Clark felt like he’d said something wrong. There was a long, strangely tense silence.
“Things change,” Bruce said eventually. “You’re not sleeping either.
“I can go without.”
“But you don’t if you don’t have to.”
“Well, maybe I’m having trouble sleeping too,” he said testily.
“Right,” Bruce said coolly. “And I’m guessing that’s my fault somehow.”
Clark’s jaw tensed. “I haven’t accused you of anything.”
“I’m not an idiot, Clark. I can read between the lines.” The mattress shifted slightly beside him, Bruce resettling his weight. He let out a sigh. “If you were thinking of asking Flash or Lantern to swap tomorrow night, don’t. They’ll just assume we’re fighting, and it’ll make things more complicated. We just have to get through this.”
Clark wasn’t much more comfortable than Bruce clearly was with their sleeping situation, but it still made him bristle to hear him talk about sharing a damn bed with him like that, like…like some kind of torture. “Well, maybe I don’t want to ‘get through this’. Maybe I think we have a busy week ahead of us, and that being well-rested is going to make this a lot easier for both of us.” He sat up. “Look, it’s fine. I’ll just sleep on the floor—”
“You’d prefer the floor to sharing a bed with me,” Bruce said, quietly venomous.
Clark watched his own fingers clench in the top sheet, twining into the fabric. “It’s not that,” he said evenly. “I just think we’d both be more comfortable. That’s all.”
“More comfortable,” Bruce echoed. Now he was sitting up too. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Bruce, can we just—”
“You’re really that uncomfortable around me now?” His lip pulled into a sneer. “You’ve sure changed your tune. What, are you afraid I’m going to do something to you?”
He looked at Bruce in shock. “What? No, I’d never—”
“Hn. Then it’s the opposite. You were hoping I’d try something instead.” His lips pulled into a smirk, more Bruce Wayne than Bruce, all performance. He let his gaze drag over Clark’s body in an awful caricature of a leer, meant to rile rather than to arouse. “Is that what you want? One last fuck for old time’s sake?”
Clark narrowly suppressed the urge to cover himself more with the sheet. “Jesus, Bruce. What are you doing?”
“We could, you know.” His tone was light, breezy, but his eyes were hard. “Haven’t you heard? I’ll sleep with anyone. It’s all meaningless anyway. Why not?”
“I never said that about you,” Clark said through gritted teeth. “Don’t twist my words—”
“You didn’t have to say it. Like I said, I can read between the lines. If me just lying here is such a distraction to you then—”
He’d had enough. “Christ. I don’t want to fuck you, okay?” he hissed. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
Bruce stilled. “What does that mean,” he said, low and dangerous. Finally, satisfyingly, the neutral mask had dropped. He looked furious.
“You know exactly what it means,” Clark said sharply. “It’s not like it ended well last time, did it?”
“‘It’. Fucking me, you mean,” Bruce repeated. “I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing. So that’s all it was to you?”
“God, that’s not—” Clark broke off with a heavy, frustrated sigh. His exhaustion was pressing down on him, oppressive and upsettingly inescapable. “There you go again, twisting everything. You always assume the absolute worst. It’s one thing to do that as Batman, but it’s another thing to do it with people, with me. That’s why we couldn’t make it work—”
“Don’t,” Bruce snapped. His eyes were glittering in the faint light coming through the window. “Don’t act like the fucking victim here. You’re the one who left me.”
The silent accusation hung in the air between them. Clark very deliberately watched his hands clench and unclench in the sheets.
“Please, Bruce. I don't want to fight with you,” he said quietly. Carefully. “I just want us to go to sleep.”
Bruce huffed. Clark felt the shift of the mattress, heard the sheets rustle. When he looked over, Bruce was lying on his back once more, hands resting on his stomach, staring blankly at the ceiling. He didn't look angry anymore. Now he just looked tired in all the ways he usually didn't let himself look, sharp gaze blunted and eyes hollow. There were fine creases around his brow, the shadow of dark circles beneath his eyes.
God, Clark ached.
“Bruce,” he said.
“What.”
“It was never just sex for me. You know that.”
A pause, then a sigh. Bruce’s eyes swiveled towards him in the dark. “I thought you didn’t want to fight.”
“I don’t. But I feel like neither of us are getting to sleep like this anyway. Maybe we should talk about it.”
“Talk about it,” Bruce said, dryly dismissive. “It’s been years, Clark. What good is that going to do now?”
“Closure?” he said. Bruce scoffed. “No, I’m serious. We’re clearly not—I mean,” he corrected, anticipating Bruce’s inevitable correction, “I’m clearly not past it. And I feel like maybe you’re not fully past it either. We didn’t really talk it out at the time, but…like you said, it’s been years. Maybe enough time has passed that we can have a grown-up discussion about it. Heck, maybe it would even be good for us.”
Bruce watched him for a few long seconds, jaw tense. His eyes flickered back to the ceiling.
“Fine,” he said. “Then tell me: why did you break up with me?”
Clark winced. “Bruce—”
“You said you wanted to talk about it.”
He did. But he hadn’t expected to go right into it like this. Sure, he’d made his bed, so he could lie in it.
But even so…
“I’m…honestly not sure where to start,” he said. “There wasn’t just one reason.” Only when he heard Bruce’s heartbeat spike did he realize how that had sounded. “Wait, I don’t mean— Please, let me start again. I’m saying it was a combination of things, that’s all.”
“Then list them,” Bruce said tightly.
There was no version of Clark that could have done as Bruce asked outright, just neatly recited all the reasons he’d decided it wasn’t working. But he couldn't back down either, or he’d never get Bruce to talk to him about this again.
He swallowed thickly, reached for something neutral. “Well, for starters, we didn’t see each other a lot. I mean, we did, technically, but. Not counting stuff with the League or team-ups, as in quality time with just us… There wasn’t much of it, is all.”
“We were both busy,” Bruce said sharply. “We knew that going in. The mission comes first for us, always. It was unavoidable.”
“I'm not saying it was either of our faults, but—”
“But.”
Clark sighed. “But it was always me pushing to spend more time with you. And you dismissed it. And it…hurt, that it didn’t seem to bother you.”
He waited for Bruce’s response, but Bruce remained still and silent beside him. “Bruce?” he prompted. “Aren't you going to say something?”
“What do you want me to say,” he said slowly.
“God Bruce, I don't know. But this whole talking thing doesn't exactly work if we don't both—”
He cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. So much for clearing the air. He slid out of bed and pushed himself to his feet. “Look, I'm not going to force this, because that won't help anything. I'll just go for a walk or something. Maybe you can get some sleep while I'm out.”
He headed over to his suitcase and pulled out a sweater. Before he could pull it on and head for the door, Bruce’s flat voice broke the silence.
“It did bother me.”
Clark paused. Turned. Bruce was sitting on the edge of the bed, forearms resting on his thighs. He stared fixedly at his clasped hands. “You seem to be under the false impression,” Bruce said, “that I didn't care about our relationship. I did.”
Clark examined him for a long moment. As much as Bruce liked to think he was a closed book, he usually wasn't – not to Clark. But just then, Bruce's defenses were all the way up, his profile smooth and blank. Letting nothing slip.
Clark considered his next words as he folded the sweater and set it back down. “I didn't say you didn't care about the relationship,” he said. “But it still felt like we wanted different things. Ending things seemed like the healthiest option.”
Bruce shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I see. Is there more? Or is it my turn now? Because I think I've figured something out.
“Figured what out?” Clark asked warily.
“Why you broke up with me the way you did. Like it didn't even matter.” When he looked at Clark, his eyes were hard as steel. “You thought you could fuck me, then turn around and tell me you wanted to end things, and I'd just shrug and say that was fine by me. We dated for months, and you really thought I was that shallow.”
Clark’s stomach dropped. “Jesus, Bruce, I never thought that you were shallow. Just—”
“Then why did you say that?”
From the harsh tone of his voice, Bruce was referring to what Clark said when they broke up. “That’s not exactly what I said—”
“You said,” Bruce cut in, ice cold, “that clearly I didn’t care who was in my bed, so I might as well find someone else to fuck.”
Clark couldn't suppress a flinch. “Bruce, please.”
“Does it make you uncomfortable to hear that, Clark?” His lips pulled into a snarl. “You're the one who said it. I'm just quoting you.”
There was a bitter tinge to his voice that was, unfortunately, entirely justified. It wasn’t the reminder that got to him so much as the word choice. Because Clark had an eidetic memory, and that was basically word for word what he’d said the night he ended things, after his ill-fated attempt at calm and mature conversation had devolved into a vicious fight. For Bruce to be able to quote him, all these years later…
“I am sorry, Bruce. Truly. I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. He meant it. “I was angry and I said things I shouldn’t have—”
“You’re not listening,” Bruce snapped. He stood then, stalking closer. “It’s not about what you said, not really. It’s how you said it, as casually as if we were discussing the weather.” He took a shaky breath. Clenched his jaw. “You hurt me, Clark. You hurt me, and even now you don’t seem to realize that. So don’t accuse me of not fucking caring enough, because I cared.”
Now that they were standing eye to eye, he could finally decipher the faintest glimmer of emotion in his eyes. Bruce was hurt. He swallowed. “Oh,” he said.
Bruce smiled humorlessly. “You really didn’t know. You think I’m that much of a robot. All this time, I never thought you were this goddamn obtuse.” The smile twisted into a sneer. “I shouldn’t have given you as much credit as I did.”
“I don’t—” Clark snapped, before he managed to cut himself off. He was trying to keep his cool but it was hard when Bruce was so defensive, so clearly determined to turn this into another fight. “I don’t think that. Of course I don’t. But look at it from my perspective. You never wanted to spend time with me, and then you'd act so distant, like I was just a…a nuisance, and you’d never tell me why—”
“Oh, like you’re such an open book—”
“So you tell me, Bruce. How was I supposed to know it would mean that much to you, when you never showed it? Half the time it felt like nothing had changed. Like we were just friends who had sex every other weekend.”
Bruce’s eyebrow twitched. “You’re the one who acted like nothing had changed. You didn’t want to tell anyone, didn’t want to meet in public—”
“If you haven’t noticed, you’re a minor celebrity, and we’re Superman and Batman. We couldn’t just date without ground rules,” he hissed. “And you agreed! You said it was a good idea.”
“I’m not the one complaining about it now, years later. Don’t pretend that was all my fault,” Bruce snarled, and god, he’d said he didn’t want to fight, he’d said that, but—
“Fine,” he said sharply, stepping closer. Bruce met his gaze without flinching, arms folded defiantly over his chest. “Do you want to know the real reason I broke up with you? It’s because I could tell it was going to happen. I could tell you weren’t happy with me, even if you wouldn’t admit it. And if I pushed you on it, you’d just…shut down. And it was…god, it was so damn hard, feeling like I was hurting you and not knowing how to fix it. Feeling like you hated being with me. That hurt me! Do you get that?”
At that, Bruce’s expression finally cracked – just the tiniest bit, the barest flicker of hesitation. Clark pushed on. “So yeah, eventually I got sick of going through the motions of a relationship you barely even seemed to want with me.” He felt his hands curl into fists. “Can you blame me for feeling…miserable, and insecure? Did you even know I wasn’t happy either? That I—”
He broke off, hating the way his voice cracked, the way his eyes burned. He lowered his gaze, jaw clenching even as all his senses stayed on Bruce: the whisper of silk as his arms slipped down to his sides, the minute shift of his weight on the carpet, the measured exhale.
“I knew,” Bruce said eventually, quiet. The barely-leashed fury was gone, and only a melancholy neutrality remained. “But you always insisted that you were fine. What else was I supposed to do?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “And what else was I supposed to do? Just tell you I loved you, in the hopes you’d say it back and…fix everything that was wrong between us?”
Bruce went still. He wasn’t even breathing. “You loved me?”
“God, Bruce, I—” He sighed. “Of course I did. Of course I loved you. Did you really think I didn’t?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Bruce said slowly. “You never told me.”
“Well, I did. I loved you.”
“I see.” Bruce was staring at him, still as a statue with that sharp, knowing gaze fixed on him.
Suddenly, being this close to him felt unbearable. Clark walked over to the bed and sat down, curled up, forehead dropped to his knees. Damn it. None of this had gone the way he’d wanted. It felt like all he’d done was pick at the wound, rile them both up instead of solving anything. It had taken them weeks after the break-up to return to any semblance of normalcy, months for things to actually feel okay again. What if he’d messed everything up again?
He didn’t think he could take it if he had. Their relationship had been far from perfect, but Bruce was still the most important person in his life. Even back then, when they’d barely been speaking, when looking at him had felt like a wound opening up in his chest, he'd missed Bruce fiercely. And apart from this trip, things had been good between them since then – not what Clark wanted from him, not everything, but somewhere close.
Clark couldn’t lose him. Not again.
After a while, he heard near-silent footsteps approach the bed. The mattress shifted beside him.
“You're wearing the same thing,” Bruce said suddenly.
Clark looked up tiredly. Bruce was sitting beside him in bed, almost mirroring his posture. “Sorry?”
Bruce gestured loosely towards him. “Your shirt. The old Met U one with the holes in the neckline. You still sleep in it.”
Clark looked down at himself, blinking at the non-sequitur. “Huh, I guess I do.” He hadn’t really thought about it before. “I'm surprised you remember it.”
“I remember a lot of things. I'm Batman,” Bruce said. Clark let out a soft snort, reluctantly amused – and a little relieved at this glimpse of normalcy between them. More quietly, Bruce added, “I always liked you in that.”
Clark’s pulse jumped, just to spite him. “Really? Why? It's falling apart.”
“It is,” Bruce agreed. “I think that's why. Almost everything else you wear is a performance. Heroic for Superman, unassumingly unfashionable for Clark Kent. But you kept wearing that t-shirt for years just because you liked it, even though it was falling apart. There's no artifice in that. It was…a side of you only I got to see.” He pressed his lips together. “I’m not saying this right. You said that you…loved me, back then. I feel I should tell you that I… I also—”
“You don’t need to say it,” Clark croaked, too fast. God help him, but he didn’t want to hear the past tense, even after everything.
Bruce’s smile was crooked. “Apparently I did. Maybe then things would have turned out differently.”
It was an olive branch. Clark took it, returning the smile. “Maybe,” he accepted. “But it’s been years. There’s not much point in talking about what ifs.”
He felt like a hypocrite saying it. He should be better at this. It had been years. Clark should have done a better job at getting over him by now.
“For what it’s worth,” he went on, “I really am sorry, Bruce.”
Bruce was watching him. In this shadowed corner of the room he probably couldn’t see much of Clark’s expression, but the intensity of his gaze made Clark wonder. He practically felt it when that gaze dropped from his face, as Bruce lay down and pulled the covers over himself once more.
“Me too,” he said. “So. How’s work been?”
Clark could recognize a transparent attempt to change the topic when he saw one. He settled down beside Bruce on the bed. “Work’s been fine,” he said. “Frustrating. I’m kinda stuck on the boring part of an article right now.”
“Tell me,” Bruce said. So Clark did, filling the quiet room with dry descriptions of tax fraud investigation until eventually, miraculously, Bruce did fall asleep. Once the queasy feeling of post-fight adrenaline finally faded, Clark followed.
When Clark woke up, the world felt strangely warm and comforting and safe. There was a strong, steady heartbeat beneath him, a broad chest slowly rising and falling, soft silk against his cheek; a pleasingly familiar smell of soap and cologne. Bruce.
Clark let out a happy sigh and nestled in, let that warmth suffuse him as he drifted into full consciousness.
And that’s when he remembered. Bruce. His eyes shot open in panic. Damn it, for a moment he’d forgotten that they were— That Bruce was—
Bruce was staring down at him with wide, stricken eyes. He looked almost guilty. “Sorry,” he said, voice gruff from sleep, just a hair too quick to sound casual. He was already sliding his hand off Clark’s back, shifting away. “I should have—”
“Wait,” Clark blurted out. Bruce stilled beneath him. Clark didn’t know what he was going to say, only that some part of his brain had thought, Bruce is leaving again, and the idea of it was suddenly, viscerally unbearable.
Without the fog of exhaustion clouding things, all the mess and confusion of the night had resolved into simple clarity. Now he was sure of what he wanted. He’d spent years pretending he was over this, over Bruce. Pretending their friendship was enough for him. He’d naively thought talking things through would provide closure, but instead all it had done was show him what he’d been ignoring all along.
He wasn’t over it. He was starting to think he would never be over it, not completely.
He wasn’t sure he could live with himself if he didn’t at least try.
With courage only his still-waking brain could muster, he brought his hand up to cup Bruce’s cheek. “Bruce…I know I was the one to end things, but. I think we could fix things. Fix us.”
Bruce was agonizingly still beneath him. “Clark,” he said, perfectly even despite the thundering of his heartbeat beneath Clark’s palm. “What are you doing.”
“Correcting a mistake. Last night, you said—you nearly said that you loved me. And I loved you.” He stroked his thumb over Bruce’s cheekbone, achingly tender; felt his own pulse stutter. “And god help me, Bruce, but I still—”
“Don’t,” Bruce snapped, voice raw. He shoved Clark off him and sat up, back bowed, hand raking through his hair.
Clark sat up beside him, heart in his throat. “Bruce,” he tried, “please, just—”
“Stop it,” he snapped. “You can’t just…do this to me. Not again. We tried this already, and it didn’t work.”
“But it could,” Clark insisted. Bruce didn’t pull away when he laid a hand on his tense shoulder, but he still wouldn’t look at him. “Bruce, just listen. Everything I said last night, every reason I gave for ending things, it all goes back to one thing: I thought you didn’t want me. But then you…you tell me that I was wrong back then, that you did want me. You loved me, but I didn’t know, and it made me miserable. And now I can’t help but wonder if—” He swallowed. “If it was the same for you.”
Bruce didn’t respond. “Bruce,” he said softly. “Please.”
Bruce sucked in a shaky breath and released it. “Damn it, Clark,” he rasped, “you’re not playing fair.”
“Sorry.”
“Liar,” he hissed. His eyes drifted shut. “I— Yes. It was the same for me. I was afraid of being…too much, too soon.” His jaw clenched. “I didn’t think that would be enough to hurt you. I…didn’t know I had that power.”
“So then our biggest problem was never even a problem. Don’t you see? If we’d had this talk then, we could have fixed things before they got so bad.” He squeezed Bruce’s shoulder, beseeching. “We could make it work now.”
Bruce shuddered, just barely, just enough for Clark to feel it. “You can’t know that.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I believe it. Trust me enough to believe it too.”
Bruce still wasn’t looking at him, like he was afraid if he did he’d crack. But he didn’t resist when Clark wrapped his arms around Bruce’s middle and tugged him against his chest, head propped up on his shoulder.
Bruce let out a stuttering breath, finally sagging against him. “I do. Trust you.”
Clark’s heart soared. “Does that mean you think you could love me again?”
Bruce’s hand came up to grasp Clark’s arms around him. “I’m not sure I ever stopped,” he said like it was a confession.
Clark squeezed him tighter. Bruce was running his thumb over Clark’s knuckles just the way he used to, the way hadn’t realized he’d missed until this moment. Everything about this moment felt brand new and achingly familiar all at once, and—god, so right. How had Clark ever thought he could make himself forget what this felt like?
“If we’re going to do this,” Bruce said softly, and Clark felt like he could float away if he let himself because thank god, thank god— “If you’re sure about doing this, with me, I’ll. I’ll be better. Do better. I swear it.”
“I believe you,” he said. Gently, he pressed his lips to Bruce’s pulse point; felt a rush of giddiness as it jumped beneath the skin. “I’ll make the same promise. No more hiding what we’re thinking or feeling. We’ll set some ground rules, talk about everything, even when we don’t want to. Don’t make that face, B.”
“You can’t see my face.”
“I can guess,” he said, grinning. In retaliation, Bruce turned in his arms and pushed him onto his back. He went with it easily, laughing. His reward was Bruce stretched on top of him, all sleep-mussed hair and soft eyes and that smug little half-smirk he did when he was really pleased, the one that always made Clark want to kiss him. The smirk slowly faded, and then Bruce was looking at him in a way he'd never seen before, open and wondering and ever so slightly terrified. Clark was sure he looked pretty much the same.
“Hey, Bruce,” he whispered. “I missed you.”
“Me too,” Bruce whispered back, and buried his face in Clark’s neck, breathing him in. Clark wrapped his arms around his waist and let his eyes drift shut.
Soon they’d have to get up, and do their jobs. They’d have to talk things over properly, and actually set ground rules rather than just talk about setting them. They’d have to go out there and pretend nothing had changed, even though it felt like everything had.
But for now? Bruce was here, and in his arms again, and – beautifully, miraculously, incredibly – they were in love.
This time, that would be enough. They’d make sure of it.