Chapter Text
1. Leave Every Place Better Than You Found It.
Clark isn't there when Bruce wakes up. It's not a strange thing- billionaires and reporters don't keep the same circadian rhythm, and he got used to it. There's a certain sting to it that comes every time, though, a reminder that time zones and cities and coastlines don't match up. That Clark is from a city with a terrible football team that is more used to setting rivers on fire than finding alligators in them, a city full of boy scout troops instead of vigilantes and a county on a lake, not one butting up against the Atlantic. He doesn't like the reminder, that Clark is someone so precious and kind that his city shines, all sunlight and lakes and people laughing in parks, lumber yards and schools.
Gotham is harsh and dark and gritty, the kind of place where vigilantes rule the streets, whether good or bad ones, and the sun shines maybe every three years. Gotham doesn't match Clark, who makes the whole place shine and leaves a note in messy shorthand on the bedside table underneath a mug of water every time just because he worries. Gotham doesn't match the man who grins so wide his eyes crinkle up and kisses Bruce on the cheek before he leaves for work. Gotham doesn't fit him, shouldn't fit him, but somehow it does.
Somehow there's a man who can walk through Crime Alley without getting mugged, a man who buys coffee for Harley Quinn, a man who has a time set every month to talk to Bruce even when he hasn't emerged from a story for weeks. Somehow, the man who left an indent in the bed has made Gotham fit him.
And the river hasn't even been set on fire yet.