Practice Makes Perfect

"Being unpleasant about it doesn't make you more right," Clark says. He's stopped slurring his words and started being petulant, which is both a good sign and a hugely irritating development. Bruce has managed to get his boots off, but the rest of his get-up is as obstinate as its owner.

"I don't care. I was still right. Strip and get in the shower."

"There were only eight seconds left, Bruce."

"I could have neutralized it in six. If you'd done as I'd said, you wouldn't be in this state."

"I'm fine, just a little woozy."

"Don't make me check you for head injuries again."

Clark's face pinches. Bruce was perhaps rougher about it than he could have been, temper just barely in check amid the rubble, and it was clear Clark had never had his hair pulled before. Or felt it happen, anyway.

"Just because you unilaterally decided that you were in charge." Clark wipes at his face, smearing carbon residue across his cheek, then puts his hand on his hip while Bruce detaches his cape for him. Masonry dust shakes out of its folds. "It doesn't mean you get to boss me around. I mean, who do you think you are."

"I'm the one who's been doing this for twenty years. I'm the one who drills himself on bomb disposal techniques twice a month."

"Is that before or after escapology practice?"

"During. I'll ask you nicely one more time. Get in the shower."

"You haven't asked me nicely at all," Clark says. He might be coherent again but he's still visibly flagging, swaying on his feet. "Anyway, I don't need to know how to defuse a bomb if I can just throw it into the sun."

"You do when its payload is laced with Kryptonite and there are only eight seconds on the clock."

"You said it was a dirty bomb."

"And that's what I meant. Dirty, Kryptonian, just like you. Get in the shower, Clark."

Clark takes a long, deep breath, chest full and rising, and then lets it out again. "A shower would be good," he admits, and for the first goddamn time tonight actually does as he's told, stripping out of his charred suit and stepping into the Cave's decontamination unit. Bruce divests himself of his own gear and joins him with shirtless abandon.

"Um," Clark says.

"You're not the only one covered in crap." Bruce turns the water on full blast and takes a mean satisfaction in Clark's gasp of shock. Revenge for having to watch him plummet out of the sky and through half a dozen stories of a high-rise. "And I don't want to have to repair the tiling if you pass out and crack it with your impervious skull."

He pushes Clark and his linebacker shoulders against the tiles in a practical demonstration of this safety precaution. The water is heating up, and Clark's looking at him with less indignation and more soft affection, which won't do at all. When Bruce glances down, he sees that Clark is on his way to an erection—at least, Bruce hopes he is, or that he's a shower rather than a grower. He shrugs mentally, tucks the image away to revisit later, and takes a grip.

Clark inhales sharply through his nose. "Is this League protocol?" he asks. When Bruce says nothing and just hefts him on his palm, he frowns and says, "Wait—this is how you jerk off? No wonder you're always in a bad mood."

"Do you want a happy ending to this or not."

"Well, it didn't have a happy middle or a happy beginning, so…" he says, but inclines his head against Bruce's shoulder when he starts to stroke, sighing, arms hanging languidly at his sides. The water patters over them both, lukewarm and faintly chlorinated. "I'll settle for approximately as messed up as the rest of my day has been. Is this how you say sorry?"

Bruce pauses in his utilitarian rhythm.

"I wasn't fully briefed," Clark says. "The decision I made was not informed. Your fault."

Bruce applies a hint of pressure, and then substantially more.

"Okay, you're not sorry," Clark says tightly. He exhales then rolls his hips and pushes roughly into Bruce's fist. "Anyone ever told you that you have communication issues?"

"I make a point of not talking to people who say things like that."

"Message received," Clark says. "Next time, though, maybe you can fill me in and we could not spend critical seconds arguing with each other, and—if we could end up like this but without the bullshit, that would—that would be—look, I'm going to, uh, pretty soon, so could you just—"

Bruce can just, a little, enough—but by his estimation, not nearly enough to be fulfilling, and when Clark presses his mouth against his shoulder and starts taking shallow breaths, he knows its time to take his hand away entirely. Clark makes a plaintive sound and shudders, then sighs. The water sluices him down.

"No. That would be weird," Bruce says, and pauses as he's made conscious of his own erection, brushing against Clark's stomach. "Done?"

"I guess," Clark says. "That was the second-most lackluster orgasm I've had with another person. Thanks."

Damn. Well, Bruce can still work with that. He removes one hand from where it's somehow gotten tangled in Clark's hair, and rests it over the back of his neck instead. "Think about that next time you're going to be stubborn. It could always get worse."

"On one hand, I can believe it." Bruce feels Clark grin against his shoulder. His hand trails over Bruce's hip, then lower. "But on the other, are you really gonna commit to mediocrity with all the practice you're going to get?"