Gone Fishing

Day four. Morale dipping in proportion to level of cellphone charge. Curry claimed that sleeping in a puddle held no mystery for him, didn't deign to join us. Novelty of living out of a tent worn off for everyone but Diana. Suspect she genuinely enjoys it. Forecast heavy rain for next two days. Food depleting rapidly. Soon expect to see—

"Hey, what's up. Ooh, what's that you're doing?"

"Making notes." Bruce snapped his notebook closed one-handed before Barry could start deciphering his shorthand, and did his best to look authoritative while leaning back in a mesh camp chair that's done nothing but threaten to topple him into the long grass all weekend.

"Pen and paper. Old-school." Barry looked up at the darkening sky. "You know, it looks like it's gonna get real damp real soon. You should put it in the cloud. Unless you're out of charge… I asked Vic if he could do anything about that but he just said I needed sensitivity training." He mimed something uninterpretable with one hand, since the other was occupied with a bag of fries.

"What are those," Bruce said.

"What are what," Barry said. "Oh, right. There's a McD's about thirty miles—" he shuffled in a half-circle, arm held out like a compass seeking true north "—that way."

"I'm confiscating them."

"Hey, no way. Come on, I've got, like, dietary requirements? I can't live off sunshine or personal woe like some people."

Bruce sighed. "Foraging for food was supposed to be part of—"

"I know, it sucks that I have to ruin a super fun team-building week like this, but my circumstances are extenuating. You want me to get you a Happy Meal next time I go?"

"No."

"Sure? It's got Superman toys. I could charge your phone while I'm there. Or there's a Starbucks right next door if you need a caffeine hit to ease your grumpitude."

"What I want is for you to participate in the spirit of things."

Barry's face was almost entirely contrite. "Does that mean I have to go fishing with Clark?"

"No, I'm going fishing with Clark. You're going hunting with Diana."

"Awesome." Barry dropped his fries in his excitement. They disappeared from their mid-air tumble as Bruce watched, barely even a blur to mark their passage to Barry's mouth. "Wait, what are we hunting?"

Wild boar, knowing Diana. There was certainly evidence of them roaming in these forests, but he doubted it would be an obstacle for her if there weren't.

"Surprise me," Bruce said.

"I don't know how you can drink that," Bruce said as Clark cracked open a warm can of Bud Light. The rain curtained around them, loud in the trees and against the fast-running river. "Where did you get it, anyway. I thought I told everyone—"

"I smuggled it in my camping gear and definitely didn't fly to Walgreens in the middle of the night." Clark caught his baseball cap before a bluster of wind could whip it away and tugged it more firmly onto his head. "As far as you know, it was part of the thirty-minute prep warning you gave us."

"I give you prep time and you pack beer," Bruce said, unfolding his traitorous camp chair. There was a drinks holder in the arm. He sighed. "This doesn't fill me with confidence."

Clark just grinned at him, already soaked to the skin. His t-shirt stuck to his broad chest; it didn't seem to bother him much. "You want me to bait your hook?"

Bruce raised an eyebrow under the hair plastered to his forehead.

"That was a genuine offer, not innuendo." Clark braced his fishing rod between his thighs while he tied on a lure. Rainwater dripped from his hair and ran down the tip of his nose. "You know, this was a good idea," he said. "Team building."

"It's not for team building," Bruce informed him. Clark brought out the hair-splitting in him, and he didn't feel inclined to fight it. "It's to see where the tension is."

"You didn't have to drag everybody out here to see where the tension is."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know exactly what I mean." Clark finished securing the lure and set his rod aside.

"If I knew what you meant, I wouldn't have asked."

"See, this is what I'm talking about."

Clark took a step forward. Bruce unequivocally would not have taken a step back even if he were standing. He folded his arms to communicate this, but Clark only seemed to find that funny. He took a firm grip on Bruce's shoulder and tipped him back in his lightweight aluminium frame performance-engineered mesh camp chair that he couldn't get to stop fucking wobbling, and leaned in close.

For a wild second Bruce thought Clark was going to kiss him. And then he did.

It wasn't as much of a surprise as he'd thought it would be, to the extent that he'd thought about it at all. Which he hadn't, apart from when Clark was being stubborn and impossible. Which, technically, was all of the time, so Bruce grabbed a handful of sodden t-shirt and kissed him back.

Clark set him back to rights while he tried to catch his brain up to what the rest of him was doing. "Are you going to be obtuse all afternoon, or are you going to admit you don't know how to tie off a lure?" he said.

It was deeply alarming, the way Clark was looking at him. Of further concern was that Bruce couldn't say for certain he wasn't looking at Clark in the exact same manner.

"I've speared arapaima in the Amazon rainforest," Bruce said. "I've caught tilapia with a bow in Tamil Nadu."

Clark grinned at him and returned to his fishing rod. He cast his line; Bruce watched his back muscles bunch under the translucence of his shirt with escalating despair.

"I guess that answers that question," Clark said.

They're the last to turn in. Clark was leaning back in his chair, face turned to the deep indigo sky and its infinite scatter of stars. Light years away, worlds upon worlds were living and dying and being reborn. It was likely Clark could see them as easily as Bruce could see the motes from the campfire as they rose on the updraft and burned into flakes of ash.

"What are you thinking about?" Bruce asked.

"You, actually," Clark said. He relaxed forward and then got to his feet, bundling the last of the fast food containers that Diana and Barry had triumphantly returned to camp with onto the fire. "And, since the kids are all tuckered out, I'm going to hit the hay."

"Kids," Bruce said. "Diana is older than all of us put together."

"I heard that," Diana called from her bivouac.

Clark unzipped his tent and shuffled inside but didn't fasten it behind him. Bruce crouched by the fire to bank the coals, then stayed like that, his forearms resting against his thighs. He was pretty sure he knew an invitation when he saw one, but he and caution were firm friends.

"Hi," Clark said, after a while. "Are you taking first watch?"

"I'm not anticipating any significant threat out here in the Adirondacks."

"You should come in, then."

Bruce nodded. He crawled into the tent and then onto Clark, who buried his fingers in Bruce's hair and drew him into a kiss without hesitation.

"Your tent is stupidly small," Bruce said. "I don't know how you expect to do this in here."

"I didn't plan for it, believe it or not. But necessity is the mother of invention." Clark slid a hand down Bruce's back, over his ass, and encouraged him to move.

"Dry humping until we come in our pants like teenagers," Bruce said tightly. Clark's hand worked its way under the layers of his clothing and touched his skin. "That's your innovation?"

"Shh."

"Don't shush me. You've had ample opportunity to initiate things and you chose now and here."

"Just think of it as team building."

"Jesus, Clark."

"We could wait until we get back, if you like. Maybe do it after a mission instead, half-out of uniform on one of your workshop benches—"

He had obviously been giving this thought. Bruce made a helpless noise. "Jesus, Clark," he said again, with substantially less control over the inflection.

"Shhh."

Bruce's arm rubbed against the side of the tent in his haste to get Clark's jeans unfastened, and he swore through his clenched teeth when static snapped at him. He sat up to pull his clothes off over his head, got his arms caught in the thick layers of fabric and set the crappy dollar store miniature LED lantern hanging from the ceiling of the tent swinging back and forth. Clark didn't even need a lantern.

Clark smiled up at him, beatific in the shifting light. "Did you bring lube?" he asked.

"You don't have any? So much for the boy scout. What happened to 'always be prepared' ?"

"I thought that was more your thing." He helped tug Bruce's undershirt and shirt and sweatshirt and coat the rest of the way off. Their body heat had warmed the tent enough that Bruce was starting to sweat.

"Fine. We'll have to improvise," he said. By which he meant he was going to unzip Clark the rest of the way and fit his cock into his mouth. Of course, that also meant he couldn't tell Clark to keep it down when he started with the loud, convulsive gasps and pulling at Bruce's hair, but fortunately it didn't take him long to come after that. His thighs shuddered against Bruce's chest and his back arched; the groundsheet bunched and crinkled beneath him.

There was a handful of seconds where is was so quiet Bruce could hear his own heart pounding, then Clark flipped them over, licked his palm and eased Bruce's cock from the constraints of his pants.

His hands were big and warm and a little too gentle. Bruce bit his tongue and decided he'd stubbornly refuse to finish until Clark started getting impatient—only it didn't look like that was going to happen. His touch was slow and exploratory, solemn almost, detouring often to stroke Bruce's stomach and hips. It certainly wasn't the quick and messy handjob Bruce had been anticipating. He was halfway to feeling guilty for getting Clark off so efficiently.

Well, he had plenty of workshop benches to make it up to him on.

"Apply yourself," he muttered.

Clark snorted. "Romance is truly dead."

He leaned over Bruce and kissed him, slid his tongue between his lips and behind his teeth, and Bruce couldn’t stop himself from making an appalling noise. And another as he came under the steady pressure of Clark’s hand. And yet another while Clark kissed him through it in that same way: affectionate and indulgent and improbably filthy. So much for the boy scout, indeed.

"Shh," Clark said delightedly.

Bruce went lax on Clark's pathetically thin sleeping bag. He could feel every uneven hummock of ground under him, and yet his eyes wanted to drift closed. Clark cleaned him up and tossed whatever he'd used into the corner of the tent, which Bruce would probably discover later was one of his socks, then settled alongside him.

"I should get to my own tent," Bruce said.

"Sure."

Overhead, thunder pealed in the night sky. A minute later the patter of raindrops hit the tent canvas. Bruce sighed. Clark snaked an arm around him.

"Or you could head out before daybreak."

"Mm."

"Either's cool." Barry's voice drifted into the still night. "I mean, if you're looking for input here, it doesn't make a difference at this point. Just my opinion."