Bootleg

"Bruce Wayne is probably going to be kidnapped tomorrow. Just a heads up."

Clark tied off the last suture in Bruce's rear deltoid and swiped it with iodine. "Is that a 'don't worry, I'll foil their dastardly plans' kind of a heads up, or a 'save me, Superman!' kind of a heads up?" He made his voice soft—in deference to the early hour, or maybe because with Bruce's head down and back bared to his hands, the moment held a brittle intimacy.

Bruce turned his head slightly. Not far enough to actually look at Clark standing at his shoulder, but enough for Clark to see a slice of his expression, the unimpressed dip of his mouth. Still, it was tempered compared to the one he'd turned on Clark when he'd offered to cauterize the wound.

"It's a 'keep an eye on the situation but don't intervene unless it's absolutely necessary' kind of a heads up." Bruce's fingers were curled tight around the edge of the gurney. They'd stayed that way the entire time Clark had worked on him, either to weather the pain, or because he was unused to someone other than Alfred tending to his injuries.

"I'll get a ransom together, just in case," Clark said. "Almost done."

"Thanks." Bruce reached back to examine the wound with his fingertips. "Good job. I can take care of it from here."

"You're welcome. So, this kidnapping plot."

"What about it?" Bruce hopped down from the gurney, then smoothly pulled on a shirt as though there weren't a freshly-stitched four-inch gouge in his shoulder. Too late to insist on dressing it; he'd only be accused of coddling. That was Alfred's battle to fight.

"You mentioned it, so I assume you're concerned."

"I was concerned that you might be concerned and would go to more trouble than was necessary. I haven't kept count of abduction attempts since the late nineties. It's not a problem."

And Bruce wanted him to keep clear of Gotham, of course. It was pretty much a cliché at this point. He heard the cave's airlock mechanism engage, the rush of lakewater. The invitation Bruce had extended to him this evening had officially expired. Clark grinned at him. "Alright, if you insist. You know, you really put the bat into philobat."

"Can't say I've heard that one before," Bruce said as Clark swept out of the cave and into the pale dawn sky. Halfway back to Metropolis, Clark heard him say, "Cute."

The story hit mid-morning: Bruce Wayne had been taken in a carjacking incident en route to the airport. His personal assistant had been found walking the shoulder lane outside of the city proper, unscathed but shaken, and unable to offer any specific details beyond a headcount of the perps. Wayne's vehicle was located in a Lowe's parking lot an hour later. No ransom demand as of midday.

Clark sat back in his chair and watched the news chyrons scroll across his screen without even reading them. He let his eyes unfocus and the racket of the Planet's bullpen fade into background noise. From it emerged a steady beat, slightly elevated for Bruce, but that was to be expected considering his circumstances. His breathing was calculatedly fast and shallow.

And through his nose. Must be gagged, Clark thought. A bright ripping noise swamped the sound of Bruce's vitals for a moment. Gagged with duct tape, he amended. He'll be in a particularly sour mood when he gets free, then.

"You know where he is, right?" A low murmur brought Clark back to his local surroundings. Lois was leaning over his desk, watching him. "Aren't you going to do something?"

Damn. He couldn't exactly tell Lois that he'd been warned off a rescue attempt, but if he zipped away on a pretense and breaking news wasn't flooded with reports of Superman recovering Gotham's favorite son in time for his mid-afternoon G&T—

Well, he'd just have to explain it to Bruce later.

"I was just about to," Clark said.

Lois narrowed her eyes. "No, you weren't. What's going on?"

Clark hesitated, an idiot move that would only serve to deepen Lois' suspicion. He checked his watch. "Hey, if you want first dibs on an interview you might want to start heading over to Gotham right about... now."

"That was stunningly unsubtle, Clark. I'm offended," Lois said, but she was already back at her desk, grabbing her bag. "Okay, fine, but you know I'm going to twist your arm about this later. Go do your thing."

With a tired air of predictability, Bruce was stashed in a dilapidated commercial building not far from Gotham's dockfront. Dramatis personae: four perpetrators, as the PA had reported. Two were arguing over an inexact instruction they'd been given, one was eating a sandwich, the last was on the can. Clark immediately herded three of them off to the precinct house and waited politely until the fourth emerged from the bathroom, then took him along to join his pals. Pretty straightforward, all things considered.

He scanned the rest of the building and located Bruce himself, sat on the floor with his back to an old cast-iron radiator in what had probably been an office before its ceiling had sagged in. The whole place smelled like wet cardboard and moldering drywall.

Clark swung the door open. Bruce glared back at him. He was gagged all right, and it was definitely duct tape.

Themed duct tape. Blue, with little red and gold Superman crests. They'd stripped him down to his undershirt and swaddled him in the stuff, elbows to fingertips, ankles to knees. No wonder he hadn't gotten free yet. He glared at Clark with such glittering ferocity that a less invulnerable man might have taken a step back. But on the bright side, he was gagged. Clark wasn't going to get a better opportunity to explain himself.

"Listen," he said, and Bruce made a shapeless, incandescent noise from behind the duct tape. Clark held out both hands, palm up. "Listen," he said again, "I didn't have a choice. Lois got on my case and I couldn't think of a good reason to not help."

Bruce stopped glaring long enough to roll his eyes.

"Come on, you know how she is. What was I supposed to say? 'Bruce Wayne? Oh, don't worry, he can take care of himself?' Please." Clark knelt; his fingernails rasped over Bruce's unshaven cheek as he worked up a corner of the tape. "My hands were tied. No pun intended. Quick or slow?"

"Mrph," Bruce said, and shuddered out an effortful sigh.

Could be either. Clark made an executive decision and ripped the tape off in one sharp jerk.

Bruce coughed out his own balled-up pocket square. "Superman," he said. His voice was hoarse, his tone impeccably polite. "I said 'slowly'."

"Sorry, I thought it would be better. Like a band-aid."

"Like a band-aid," Bruce muttered. "Would you get me out of this? My fingers have gone numb."

"Was that part of your escape plan?"

"I had things underway, but you're here now, I suppose. Some amendments to the escapology drills may be in order. They aren't usually so thorough with the tape."

"Sure." Clark reached around to detach him from the radiator pipes. He must have let them pop him pretty good; there was a bruise coming in on his cheekbone. "What's with the novelty bondage anyway?"

"Because, Superman, there is a thirty-seven gram Kryptonite shard in a lead box on the table in the next room, and whoever set this up thought it would be funny."

So, this was an acquisition mission. Not a blasé disregard for his own well-being so much as a concern for Clark's, albeit blanketed by the misdirects and the speciousness, the relentless opacity.

"It is, a little bit," Clark said. "Funny."

That would explain the lightness in him, the way he wanted to smile. He slid his hands up Bruce's arms and over the tense muscle beneath the tape until he found an edge, and tried peeling some of it off.

"You were lucky with your timing." Bruce grimaced and rolled his shoulders, moving away as much as his bonds would let him. "Okay, on second thoughts, don't touch. It's attached to my arm hair. I'm going to need some WD-40 on this."

"Don't worry, Mr. Wayne," Clark said, too warm by far, but he couldn't help that now. "I'll get you out of here."

"Be discreet. There's a lot my image can endure but I don't want to be seen like this in public. Get the K on your way out."

Clark hauled him to standing. A princess carry would be undignified, anything else precarious with Bruce's hands bound behind his back. Clark slung him over his shoulder. Not as undignified.

"Embarrassed to be seen with me?"

Clark felt the rumble of Bruce's voice against his shoulder. "That's not the problem and you know it."

Clark's smile turned sober. Bruce was covered in his crest, just short of being stamped property of Superman. It was predictable that high-profile figures would be used to get his attention, and inevitable that one of them would eventually be Bruce, but it was in both their interests that the connection wasn't made significant in the public consciousness. Bruce already had enough of a balancing act to maintain without being used as bait on the regular.

So. "We'll get you home in no time," Clark said, gripping Bruce's thighs securely. "Excuse my handsiness, but I'm going to hold tight because you can't. How about I make it up to you with dinner?"

"I've definitely heard that one before."

It was unlikely that General Tso's compared to the five-star epicurean gourmet whatever that Bruce usually encountered in his circles, but Clark had promised and Bruce had accepted graciously, give or take an ominous prediction of an MSG hangover and assurances that he wasn't so ascetic that he didn't eat something deep-fried now and then.

Not so gracious was the way he'd browbeaten Clark with all kinds of frustratingly reasonable and not at all ironic concerns about associating where they might be seen together, until he'd agreed that they would eat at Bruce's transparent box of a house.

But, Clark thought, there was something nice about the place on a typical Gotham Sunday. The fire spat and popped in the hearth; outside, hazy rain condensed on the lakehouse windows and gathered into rivulets. Against all odds, Bruce had admitted defeat first and was currently slumped back against the couch with his shoulder pressed to Clark's, his breath slow and steady like his heartbeat, his socked feet propped on the glass coffee table among the takeout cartons.

"So, how long did it take to get all the glue off?" Clark asked, going ahead and pilfering the last wonton.

"Not as long as you'd think."

"You shaved your arms." Clark meant it as a joke, but Bruce shot him such an offended look he had to swallow his mouthful fast so he could laugh. "Oh my god, you did shave your arms."

He ran his fingers down Bruce's forearm and sure enough, it was smooth. Bruce's skin rose in bumps at his touch.

"The compound I used to dissolve the tape also dissolves body hair," Bruce said primly, but he didn't take his arm away. "Laugh it up, Kent. Tell me again how funny it was."

"You were a sight to see," Clark said, and cleared his throat. The visuals had certainly stuck with him, pun maybe intended this time.

Bruce looked at him steadily, and without breaking eye contact, leaned over to retrieve something from beneath the sofa. There was a slight but detectable uptick in his heart rate as he revealed what it was.

A roll of duct tape.

Duct tape covered with tiny bat symbols.

"Oh," Clark said. There were several ways the afternoon could proceed from here. He let his tone slide into mild curiosity. "Where'd you get that?"

"You're not the only one who has bootleg merchandise, Superman."

Bruce peeled a length of tape from the roll. The noise it made bounced through the lakehouse with foreboding. He sat up and turned, his knee dipping the couch cushion and Clark prepared to have the tape plastered over his mouth in exactly-calculated revenge, but as Bruce's movement unfolded fully, it became apparent that wasn't his immediate intention.

He traced the line of Clark's throat with his thumb and leaned in. "Fast or slow?"

"Slow?" Clark hazarded.

"Figures." Bruce rested his fingertips along Clark's jaw, and unhurriedly kissed him. His chest rose against Clark's in a deep inhale and the soft press of his lips was just a little too practised. Clark fell into it with a shiver of exhilaration regardless, but he couldn't help wonder what he'd have gotten if he'd asked for it fast. A rough hand gripping his chin, the other already unbuckling Clark's belt; something biting and ruthless and over as quick as a gag being ripped off.

He made a wordless sound and lost his chopsticks so he could grip Bruce's hair maybe, or cup the back of his head and commit to something more… more. He wasn't sure, and didn't get the chance to find out because Bruce broke the kiss and caught his hand up.

He wrapped a length of tape tight around Clark's wrist, once, twice.

Clark furrowed his brow. He was up for iterating on the kissing for as long as it took, but this was a game he didn't get. "You know this won't hold me," he said.

"Won't it?" Bruce drew Clark's wrists together in front of him and methodically bound them, each lap of tape evenly spaced. His voice was warm and matter-of-fact. "I noticed the situation the other day had something of an impact on you. That got me to wondering, but we could see about a more faithful reconstruction, if you want."

Clark could recall the events of the kidnapping rescue clearly, but an eidetic memory was no use if cognitive bias had set in. He'd been calm and collected, hadn't he? Bruce had been the flustered one, for a given value of flustered. Clark shifted in his seat and the tape pulled against his skin. It wasn't a uncomfortable sensation for him, just an odd one. "This is—this seems fair," he said.

"Fair." The ever-present crease between Bruce's brows deepened.

Clark looked down at his hands. The tape was layered neatly over his wrists and down to his knuckles, bats upon bats. He made a fist as best he could without tearing anything, and looked back up at Bruce.

"This seems," he said, as the realization broke that this was a thing he could do. "Good."

Bruce nodded at that, far more pleased, then took to his feet and hooked Clark up by his duct-taped hands. He brought them through to the bedroom. "Get comfortable," he said, with the authority of someone who had an unfathomably strong person restrained with nothing but a meter of tape and his own tremendous will.

Obediently, Clark put his shoulders against the angular struts of the headboard, not unlike how Bruce had been seated at the radiator. Bruce slung a leg over Clark's thighs, bent Clark's arms above his head and taped him securely—if he had been anyone else—to the frame.

Bats flitted in Clark's periphery, black on yellow: warning, danger. Bruce leaned back to admire his handiwork; his gaze raked along the boundary of his tape job but not much lower, despite the fact that Clark was, at this point, inconcealably hard.

"So. Am I restrained to your satisfaction?" Clark asked, and was speared with a look that Bruce usually reserved for people who were being gauche near him at parties.

"This isn't for my benefit." Bruce didn't even try to sound like he wasn't lying.

Clark grinned. "Is that a yes?"

Bruce reached out and touched Clark's wrist. The sensation was muted through the tape. He could detect the pressure of Bruce's fingertips, but not the whorl of his prints.

"It's not a no," he said.

"Come on, then." Clark tightened his hands into fists and watched Bruce track the flex of muscle and sinew in his forearms.

In single smooth motion, Bruce shifted his weight across Clark's hips. Clark rose against this sudden windfall of pressure. "This seems to be working for you," Bruce observed. "Is it the bondage specifically, or the illusion of helplessness?"

"Specifically? You need to deduce further."

"Careful, I might come to the conclusion that you're a duct tape fetishist."

"I'm not the one who keeps a roll under my couch."

A loud rip cut through the room and Bruce bore down on Clark with a strip of tape, and this time he did smooth it over Clark's mouth. His thumbs swept over Clark's cheeks, then he leaned in to press a light kiss against the impression of Clark's lips.

"An improvement."

Clark's skepticism was muffled somewhat.

"So, how do you want to do this," Bruce said. "Thoughts?"

Well, we're already doing this, Clark would have said if he weren't gagged. Bruce obviously had some ideas of his own, or he would have asked first, taped later—or maybe he had anticipated Clark's backtalk.

Of course, if Clark wanted to make a suggestion, all he would have to do was open his mouth. He tilted his head and shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage.

"Carte blanche?" Bruce said. "Brave man."

Clark snorted. It would be braver of him to share what he actually wanted from Bruce. He'd asked for it slow and gotten it slow, so Bruce was receptive if nothing else, but he was curious to learn what it was that Bruce might want from him. He'd heard the rumors, the gossip, the lurid tabloid recountings but it would be naïve of him to believe everything he read.

It could be that, after everything, Bruce still harbored a desire to have Superman at his mercy. Clark's only complaint was that this was plan B.

Though one thing he was certain of, Clark thought, as Bruce edged back and unfastened his slacks for him, tugging them down with brisk efficiency, was that Bruce wasn't much of a romantic. No murmured endearments, no tender caresses, just his hand splayed over the tented cotton of Clark's boxers, applying the same clarity of purpose to this as he did anything else he was serious about. It was—something, to be touched like this by a man like him. The tape over Clark's mouth began to turn slick and warm. His breath came faster as Bruce pulled the waistband of his underwear down under his balls and gave him a studious once-over.

"Hm. I had wondered," Bruce began, then thankfully changed his mind about sharing what mysteries he'd thought Clark had stowed in his pants, and leaned over to open his nightstand drawer instead. He returned upright with something sleek and silver in hand.

Clark raised his eyebrows. It wasn't as though he'd never seen a vibrator before, just that he'd never considered them a thing for… well. For guys. Or for him, any more than he'd considered being tied up was for him. A whole vista of new possibilities reeled out before him.

Bruce just raised his eyebrows right back and tucked his hand beneath Clark's shirt. He flattened his palm over his stomach and leaned his weight on him as though to pin him down, which struck Clark as both pointless and ominous. "It may be a lot at first." Bruce paused. "I think. I don't know if it'll be the same for you." He stroked along Clark's perineum with the vibrator—it was cool, smooth, innocuous—then rested it longways behind Clark's balls, and turned it on.

It felt as though an electric current had been run through him. Every muscle in Clark's body locked tight in a prolonged involuntary spasm. Blood went storming to his face and his dick, and it was only the vague awareness that he shouldn't tear the duct tape that kept him from arching completely off the bed. It stretched around his wrists as he jackknifed, a stifled hiccup of a gasp escaping him.

"Wow," Bruce said under his breath. He ran his hand over Clark's abdomen; his fingers traced the geometry of his tensed muscles from sternum to navel, and then he took the vibe away. "That answers that."

Clark collapsed back into himself. "Hhngnh," he informed Bruce, and accepted with equanimity that he'd probably have made the same noise without being gagged. His dick twitched and trickled precome onto his stomach.

"I'm going to touch you with it again," Bruce said, low and urgent as though informing Clark that he was about to disarm a bomb, and with a glimmer of the same eagerness. He shimmed back until he was sitting between Clark's knees. He pushed his legs apart and ran a hand up the inside of his thigh. "Longer this time. Don't break anything."

Clark felt him slide the vibrator back into place, nudging up behind his balls again. His body anticipated what was about to happen; his thighs tremored and clenched tight. He remembered, inexplicably, the kryptonite spear at his face.

There was a pause as Bruce returned his free hand to Clark's stomach, sweeping his palm over his skin before settling—giving him time to signal if once was enough, Clark realized. He nudged Bruce's flank with his knee as an okay.

"You're better off relaxing," Bruce said, and clicked the vibe back on.

Easy for him to say. The tape ripped as Clark bucked and twisted. He wanted to bring his legs together and squeeze as though he could contend with the ferocious stimulation that way, but he couldn't even try it with Bruce between his knees. All he could do was breathe frantically through his nose and ride out the involuntary jolt and kick of his muscles.

Bruce lifted the vibe slightly. The unbearable edge retreated and Clark stopped feeling as though he were about to be pummeled into an orgasm. "God," he said, except it was more like, "Hnf."

"Didn't think you'd need such a light touch," Bruce said with feigned disappointment. Even in the state he was in, Clark couldn't miss the color rising in Bruce's face or the way he kept wetting his lower lip. His sweatpants weren't disguising much, for that matter.

He wasn't unaware that Bruce was getting more out of this beyond the obvious erection. His fascination with Clark's physical responses wasn't wholly sexual; Bruce made a habit of testing the boundaries of Clark's physicality, or any boundary at all, for any reason he could find. Nobody had made a habit of leveling their attention on him quite the way Bruce had.

Clark would usually have apologized out of habit anyway. He lifted one shoulder and hoped it got the sentiment across, and maybe it did, because instead of drilling him through another round of erotic endurance, Bruce trailed the vibe along the inside of Clark's thigh and into the crease of his groin. The thrum of its vibrations sank deep into his skin. It was pleasant but less immediate, and Clark found that he craved a return to the borderline unbearable intensity of it between his legs. His hips lifted and he pushed against Bruce's hand.

"Oh?" Bruce said contemplatively. "How about this."

He ran one hand up over Clark's hip and encircled the base of his dick so that it stood up instead of lying flat to his stomach. Even that light contact had Clark barely knowing what he wanted from this. To make it last as long as humanly possible. To come as fast as he could, and then make Bruce come, too. If Bruce tightened his grip just a little, stroked up and turned his wrist just right, he wouldn't last long.

Instead, Bruce rested the vibrator across the shaft of Clark's dick.

Clark made an inarticulate noise and arched tight. His wrists pulled forward from the headboard and stretched the tape out thin, but Bruce was too intent on pressing quick teasing touches beneath the head of his dick to be disapproving about his lack of control.

Well, Clark would try to show him some control anyway. He clenched his teeth and let his breath out in sharp gusts, and relaxed his shoulders back against the headboard. He was steadily dripping precome now; it slid down the length of him and onto Bruce's fingers. It was more than humans tended to produce as far as he'd ascertained, but Bruce spread it around without concern. Maybe he'd be quizzed on it later. That seemed about his speed when it came to pillow talk.

Bruce drew the vibe along his shaft and behind his balls again, devastatingly close to but not quite touching his ass, then back up—and nestled the very tip into the slit of his dick. A column of bliss speared through Clark's body and he bucked helplessly on its impalation, catapulting the vibe from Bruce's hand. It landed on the mattress. The tape around his wrists was a goner for sure this time, and possibly the headboard.

Bruce paused. "Too much?" he asked, idly stroking as though he were unaware that Clark was pouring every shred of his restraint into prolonging this. Surely Bruce could feel the throb of his pulse beneath his fingertips. Surely he could hear the violent thunder of Clark's heart.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He'd had his encounters with pain—enough to know this felt nothing like it—yet it held a similar depth of intensity, the impression that he was on the brink of some momentous, or terrible, revelation. It was uncommon for physical sensation to register with him this way, like he wasn't safe inside his own skin. The last time he'd felt like this he'd been with Bruce, too.

He exhaled loudly; the tape held his breath warm and moist against his lips.

"I'll take that as a yes." Bruce eased up on his merciless affection and instead leaned over Clark's chest to carefully peel the tape from his face. He sat back with a dismayed expression. Presumably he'd noticed the state of his headboard. Clark craned his neck to survey the damage. Oh, yeah, it was looking pretty bent up.

"You know," Bruce said, "I don't know why, but destroying the furniture didn't factor into my plans this evening."

"Make better plans next time."

Bruce shot him a dry look and reached for the vibrator. Some part of Clark registered this as a threat, and he kicked out to send it spinning to the other end of the room. It made an abrasive buzzing noise against the tile then stuttered out dead.

Bruce looked to it, then back at Clark, consternation in the crease of his brow, and everything Clark had wanted to say to him this evening dammed up in his throat. He reached out and took Bruce by one shoulder instead, and the other. Duct tape clung in shreds from his wrists. Bruce turned his face and kissed the jut of Clark's wristbone through its plastic surface, then tore off a strip with a quick, hard yank.

It didn't hurt at all, but a shiver rippled through Clark from crown to heel.

"That wasn't slow," he said, and pulled Bruce down onto him.

Bruce braced himself, eyes closed for a moment, shoulders rising as he took a deep, deliberate breath. "Hold on," he said. He sounded gratifyingly strained, the meditative tone he'd kept on with finally giving way, even though he'd stopped pretending there was nothing new in this for him a while ago. He reached down and Clark felt him fumble himself out of his sweats, a stamp of heat against Clark's skin that made his breath catch.

He stroked his hand down the back of Clark's thigh and lifted his knee into the crook of his elbow, adjusting the angle as though he were about to push right into him dry.

"Hey," Clark said in mild rebuke. It made Bruce laugh, a low rumble that vibrated against Clark's chest. Clark wanted to laugh with him, that fluttering lightness in his ribcage bursting to be out. Instead he choked on it when Bruce slowly thrust forward and his cock slid into the valley of Clark's hip.

"You were holding back. Under the circumstances, I'm impressed," Bruce said.

Bruce wasn't ungenerous with his feedback. In fact, he'd offer it whether Clark wanted it or not. Usually it gave Clark a frisson of satisfaction when it was positive, a glow of pride, even—but delivered here, like this, it was a depth charge. Clark's hips jerked up; his dick dragged across the contour of Bruce's stomach.

"I wrecked your bed, and your—your toy," Clark pointed out.

"But not me."

"That's—that's a good thing. Why do you sound disappointed?"

"No reason," Bruce said, and shoved Clark against the crumpled headboard with long, full thrusts that made the bed thump up against the wall. His cock drew hot friction alongside Clark's; the crest of his hipbone rolled against the back of Clark's thigh. Then he slowed and steadied into purposeful grind, and Clark found himself right back on the edge.

He pressed his fingers into the muscle of Bruce's shoulder, and Bruce grabbed his wrist and slammed it to the mattress, the remains of the duct tape crinkling under his grip.

"This won't hold me," Clark insisted, but at the same time he was chasing the idea that it would, because Bruce was already pinning him with his body and his bare hand and Clark was letting him. He could keep letting him, and never forget exactly how it felt to have the weight of the Bat bearing down on him.

He was pretty sure that shouldn't feature on his hierarchy of needs. He flung his head back and came anyway.

Bruce fell still, relaxing his grip on Clark's knee; Clark immediately dug his heels into the mattress and arched, thrusting between them as he kept on coming. Bruce could probably feel Clark pulsing against the soft skin of his stomach, the hot flood of it.

"I know," Bruce said tightly into his ear, then rolled off and onto his back. Clark watched, rapt, as he curled one hand between his legs and jerked himself with the other, his fingers shining with Clark's come. His mouth was pressed into a tight line, and Clark—he meant to run his thumb across Bruce's lower lip, encourage him to slacken up and breathe and maybe make a sweet sound or two, but as he reached over he knew he wasn't going to do that.

Clark laid the palm of his hand over Bruce's mouth like a gag. Bruce glanced sidelong at him, clenched his teeth and went perfectly still. His breath huffed from his nose over Clark's knuckles, and then he came over himself with a long shudder.

Okay, Clark thought. Okay. He'd be down for a more faithful reconstruction next time, if that's how it was.

Bruce peeled Clark's hand from his face and then flattened him with what felt like a remarkably sincere if messy kiss, and then another that was more considered but no less affectionate. Clark smiled into it, until Bruce shifted over him and things… slid.

He made a face. Bruce made one back at him. "Shower?"

"Yup." Clark picked at the tape on his wrists; it left flecks of gray glue in his arm hair. "And whatever you used to get rid of this."

"Oh, you know what, I am fresh out," Bruce said. He yanked another strip of tape from Clark's skin, then kissed the spot.

So much for afterglow. Clark shoved Bruce over so that he'd slope off and take the first shower, since he didn't seem inclined to get up of his own accord. He stepped out of his sweats and left them in the middle of the floor on his way. Clark stared at them and listened to the white noise of running water, letting his brain loop pleasantly through the afternoon until he caught sight of the vibrator fetched up against the glass wall.

He pulled his pants up far enough to be considered modest to any lurking paparazzi and planted a foot on the floor, leaning off the bed to grab it. If it was broken he could try to fix it, and maybe he'd be let off the hook for reflexively propelling it halfway across the room. He turned it in his hands; the batteries and switch would be in the base—

And also on the base was a bat symbol, molded into the black plastic.

"Unbelievable," Clark said to himself.

"Don't worry about fixing that," Bruce said, naked except for the towel he was using to dry his hair. "I could only get them made in batches. I have dozens of the damn things."

Clark stared at him.

Bruce shrugged. "Want to break some more? I'm free to be kidnapped next week."