More Than Silhouettes

Star City Technology Conference and Expo, the banners and sailflags bedecking the hotel concourse announce, reflected manifold in the building's modern glass-and-steel facade. It figures that it would be held here in the space-age curvature of contemporary architecture and not in one of the stately buildings downtown. Cramming that much technology per square foot into something so old would probably make it an art installation instead.

Clark Kent shoulders his bag and, as he checks in, wonders what kind of slick modernity will have befallen his room.

Massive, massive glass windows that facilitate a tropical microclimate, naturally. His compliments to the architect. He'll only have to sweat through two nights, at least—tonight, when Bruce Wayne will make himself known as a surprise attendee, having taken a last-minute hands-on interest in his own products for whatever fickle reason—and tomorrow, by which time they should have located their target, extracted the necessary information, Bruce Wayne will have gotten bored and gone home, and Clark can get on with writing his article on the How to Identify Risks, Threats and Vulnerabilities in Your IT Infrastructure panel for the Planet's technology spread.

He mashes the AC controls and then sits to kick off his shoes; the sound of them hitting the floor echoes loudly around the room. He sighs.

Bruce Wayne arrives fashionably late, as is his wont. The hotel is booked solid and has been for months and no denomination of bill slipped to the concierge can change that. The basic suite he has wrangled is next to Clark's by design, but it would be like him to attempt to lubricate his way into the penthouse as a matter of course.

They rendezvous in Bruce's room so that he can be intractable with authority. The case has had something of a learning curve so far, not least for dealing with Bruce's inconsistent interpersonal skills. Clark knows he's a personal affront to him in myriad ways, many of which he doesn't fully understand and probably never will. Existing was one reason, until it wasn't. Not existing seemed to upset him equally, or so he's heard. Being alive again: opinion pending, erring on the side of exasperated.

"Piper Moritz is on the event roster. I still think she's our key."

"She's a junior management gofer." Bruce lounges in the lone taupe wing chair, leaving Clark on his feet.

"She has the contacts."

"But not the clearance levels."

"Not officially."

"What's your evidence, Clark?"

"Intuition. With the pattern we've been seeing, I think—"

Bruce holds up a hand. "Look, I'm not in the habit of committing corporate espionage based on nothing but a hunch."

"Really? I thought that was very much in your wheelhouse."

"What we have here is circumstantial at best."

"But you think there's something we can learn," Clark points out, "or you wouldn't have bothered coming."

It took him a few incidents to pin it down, but Bruce doesn't like it when Clark is right. That part is obvious. The part that took a bit more consideration was that it's not being wrong that bothers him. It bothers him because it means Clark has figured something out—either before he's managed to, or more likely because it was something he was withholding.

Clark can only assume that Bruce thinks he cheats, the same way as he cheats at gravity, at being faster and stronger, at death. Maybe he harbors some paranoia that Clark is privy to more than he actually is. It would explain why Bruce still feels foreign even after months of working together; his reflex is to make himself unknowable.

Regardless, it's always a gamble to cut through his deliberate spuriousness, and it rarely pays off. Today has not been exceptional in that regard.

"If you don't mind I'm going to shower," Bruce says, "and then I'm going to recon the bar."

"I'm slumming it," Clark hears Bruce say to the woman at his side, napkin and a tumbler of gin in his hand, tie already loose and he's barely been here an hour. "There's not even a minibar."

She laughs and tugs a strand of hair out of her chignon, resting her clutch on the bartop so she can lean on one elbow and touch her neck. "Lucky me," she says, "now you have to hang out at the bar with us ordinary folk instead of having a private party."

Bruce smiles and lays his phone face-down next to it. Great, Clark thinks. Finally. If Bruce can intercept Moritz's contact history then this will be more straightforward than either of them had hoped. Bruce taps the back of the phone, an idly flirtatious gesture that activates the cloner with a haptic command.

The phone stays face-down. Bruce orders another drink. And another, and a round for the bar. He's had plenty of time and then some for his software to work its magic, and he hasn't glanced in Clark's direction even once, where he's sat alone at one of the tables with his notebook and a glass of diet cola.

One of Bruce's hands migrates up Moritz's arm until it's cupping her shoulder.

Clark frowns and pulls up his contact list. Bruce's ringtone trills loudly—the WayneTech startup jingle, familiar to anyone running a device with the OS. Three other people in the bar go for their phones. Clark's association is of the rare occasions that the Bat's computer has needed rebooting, when it's an incongruous lively echo in the sheetmetal shadows of the cave.

He watches Bruce pick up his phone, look at it and then hang up. His hand slides down Moritz's arm again and flattens in the small of her back. A moment later Clark is pinged with an auto-reject message: In a meeting.

Not soon after, Clark senses someone approach his table. "Don't bother," the someone says. "That's Bruce Wayne."

Clark looks up from his phone. It's a man in the first flush of middle age, unremarkably handsome but wearing his suit like it's a costume. He's clutching his drink tightly enough that his fingertips have gone white. He's sweating, ever so slightly.

Oh, no, Clark thinks. Whoops.

"He'll chew you up and spit you out," the man says.

"I don't think there's any danger of that," Clark replies, cheerfully misunderstanding even as he wonders if the man speaks from experience or is just parroting some gossip. "At best I'll get a lousy quote. At worst, nothing on the record."

"Oh," the man says, following Clark's lanyard down his chest, eventually arriving at his badge. "You're press? The—" He makes a gesture that encompasses Clark's glasses and shirt, "—make you look like a tech guy. Are you covering the expo?"

"Yup," Clark says. And that's all he says. He grins nervously though the ensuing awkward silence.

"Well," the man says, cautiously. "I don't suppose I could buy you a drink?"

It's an easy enough question to answer, but for some reason the gray flecks in his hair give Clark pause. "Ah, no, thank you," he says, not unkindly. Heat crawls across his face. "Not tonight."

The man hesitates for a moment and then leaves after dropping a pleasantry and a handshake, but not his name. Clark's view of the bar is restored. Bruce has turned his head and is looking at him for the first time since he got here, his expression carefully schooled.

Well, then. Clark checks his watch—it's late enough. He takes himself back to his room.

Some hours later, amid the usual ambient noise of the hotel—the foot traffic and slightly-too-loud voices, the struggling AC and inexplicable moving furniture—he's awakened from a light doze by Bruce stumbling up to his room.

He's not alone.

"Your eyes are so incredible," Bruce says. Clark can hear him unlocking the door, the magnetic displacement of the keycard in the lock. "So blue."

"They're green," Moritz says, half-laughing, confusion softened by her evening at the bar.

"Oh," Bruce says, no sharper. Clark can't tell if it's an act this time. "Must be the lighting." The door shuts behind them.

Clark can ignore this. He doesn't have to listen to them kissing, or the sound of skin brushing the bedsheets. He sighs up at the ceiling and kicks his own sheets down to his knees, his body trying to mediate between the chill of the AC and the swelter of the day's heat stored in the room.

He's had a lot of practice with this since his powers manifested as a kid, especially after that one scarring incident with his parents. He perfected it during his travels, in hostels with paper-thin walls and in shared rooms, situations where even a lack of enhanced hearing would require a pillow over his head. It just takes a bit of mindfulness, a meditative drawing inward. Something to bring his focus back onto his own body.

In the room next door, Piper's gasp bubbles into a laugh. Bruce's returning laugh is muffled. Then she gasps again, serious this time, and Clark hears with pin-drop clarity the scrape of Bruce's stubble on the inside of her thigh.

And, okay, whoa. He is suddenly a little too focused. Kind of—overwhelmingly focused. This flavor of awkward response was something he thought he'd got a handle on a long time ago, too.

Clark groans and rolls onto his front, which only underscores that he's half-erect and rising. Not for the first time, he wonders why he thought that coming here with Bruce was a good idea.

Sometimes when it's like this, sensory satiation is the way to go, overloading his brain until everything turns to white noise. He's not keen on the idea at this particular point in time, what with any number of people in the hotel being up to similar activities, so Clark screws his eyes shut and lets his mind drift instead. They oblige him by being mostly quiet for a long while, just small, intimate noises he can filter out—which means he's almost asleep when Piper's breathing deepens and she breaks into an ascending string of moans.

Bruce's heart is a metronome.

Bruce. He's good at what he does. Whatever he turns his hand, or mouth, to.

Clark takes a deep, deep breath. He's gotten fully hard while he was dozing, a steady beat between his legs.

Piper reaches a crescendo and then dissolves back into gasping. Clark cracks open his eyes, stripping the wall away in time to see Bruce's slacks slide down over the long cut of his thigh muscles, belt clunking to the floor. It wasn't exactly deliberate. He's tired, sleep-fuzzed and he could go so far to say it was an accident, but he usually has more control than this.

Bruce is helping Piper onto her hands and knees on the bed, hiking her skirt up around her waist. This is already more than a few steps over the line so Clark turns to stare at the ceiling again, ignoring his hard-on as best he can.

"Oh, god, yeah," Piper murmurs. "Oh, god, Bruce."

Clark wonders if the bar might still be open. Probably not. Maybe he could go sit in the foyer for a while.

At least Bruce is his usual stoic self, even if the bed is complaining rhythmically. Clark holds his breath and suddenly loses his grip on his restraint, imagining Bruce sinking into her. He lets out a long, shaky breath. He's not going to jerk off, even though his dick is getting wetter against his stomach with each creak of the mattress. He won't be able to look Bruce in the eye if he does, and Clark doesn't need to give him that kind of an advantage.

He likes to drag things out. Maybe a side-effect of that stoicism, or a demonstration of his pathological control issues. Piper seems to appreciate it regardless—constant low exclamations and breathy encouragements until the bed creaks escalate and she gets louder again, the quick slap of skin and vocalized gasps.

It's the sounds between her gasping that makes Clark realize that's not what he's listening for. Bruce's breath has started dragging in his throat, and god, it's that—that's what is keeping him at a high burn.

It shakes him badly enough that he sets aside his morals, just for an instant, and stares through the wall. Bruce is still inside her, curled over as she collects herself, his hands huge around her waist. He's resting his forehead in the middle of her back, his mouth against her spine.

"You want to come?" Clark hears him say.

"Again?" she says breathlessly, laughing, her bangs clinging to her face. "Okay."

Bruce straightens up and slides his hands down over her hips. His shirt obscures his cock until he begins fucking her again in earnest, but even then his movements only offer quick glimpses. Clark could look through the cloth. He will not look through it. This should be enough—he's gone far enough.

"Then touch yourself," Bruce says.

Clark clenches his teeth.

"Touch yourself," Bruce says again, much quieter. Barely a whisper. Clark can probably hear him better than she can. "Go on."

He hooks his arm around Piper's thigh, nestles the back of her knee in the crook of his elbow, and turns her body into Clark's view in a motion that's as efficient as any Clark's seen him execute in the field. She goes onto her forearm so she can rub herself, fingertips brushing Bruce's cock as he glides into her. Clark can see him—all of him, when he pulls back out, wet and—

It's explicit as all hell, even after listening to them, even after seeing what he's already seen. It shocks the breath out of him, in truth, but not so much that he can't make for his dick, his last shred of decorum melted in the incandescent flare of his arousal.

"That's right," Bruce says and pulls her onto him deeper, faster. His pulse breaks into a sprint. It barrages Clark's hearing and he can't bear it for long, the way his own pulse is trying to match him beat-for-beat. He turns his face away and jerks himself with shaking hands. Roughly, as though it's—Bruce is evidently considerate in bed, but he's not gentle with Clark in any respect. He wouldn't need to be gentle with Clark.

He's actually going to come from this, he thinks with a horrified kind of satisfaction, and probably before Bruce does. It's not a competition, Bruce might say. Not a competition, but definitely a game and Clark's not sure there's any way for him to win at this point. May as well lose gracefully. Piper beats them both with a sedate groan that quickly subsides, and then Clark is alone with Bruce's ragged, shortening breaths. Clark strokes himself in time, his heart pressing into his throat.

Bruce makes a small, harsh noise that Clark will never, never be able to get out of his head and then exhales all at once. If Clark turned his head right now he would see him in his moment of climax, guard dropped for an instant. Maybe he'd see if this is a way that Bruce could be gentled.

He wants to so badly, but—he struggles briefly with his conscience until it turns out the mere idea of it is enough. He shudders, muscles clenching hard enough to twist him up off the bed. He comes over his fingers and his stomach, a foot above the mattress.

He just floats there for a moment in a stupor, slowly rocking into his own hand until he comes back to himself. He can hear talking in the next room, bodies moving around. The hum of the bathroom light. Clark lets himself watch this part without guilt: Bruce splashing water onto his face; Piper pulling down her skirt.

"That was fun," Piper says, stepping into her pumps and patting her hair into place. "We should do it again sometime."

"You're not going to ask for my number, are you?"

"Bruce," she says. "I'm not stupid." She pushes up on her tiptoes and lands a small, sweet kiss on his mouth. Bruce lets her, then sees her to the door.

Clark suddenly feels distinctly uncomfortable. A shower would probably help. He drifts onto his feet and slopes into the bathroom to wipe at his hands and stomach, and lets the shower heat up while he stares at himself in the mirror with recrimination.

Just as he's about to step in, there's a knock at his door.

"You've got to be kidding me," he groans, bolting through and casting about for yesterday's slacks. "Are you kidding—goddamn—"

He doesn't bother fastening his button-down, and there's not much he can do about his sweat-mussed hair and its wild licks. He opens the door and Bruce, who's put his shoes back on even if he hasn't bothered to tuck his shirt, invites himself in.

"It's kinda late," Clark says, following him through the steam billowing from the bathroom door.

"Not too late for a shower," Bruce remarks. "I need your laptop."

"Didn't you bring your own?"

Bruce just makes an ambiguous noise and leans an elbow on the ring-stained melamine table where Clark's laptop sits, rubbing at the trackpad until the screen wakes up. He hooks his phone up and drags a bunch of files onto Clark's desktop, displacing most of his icons.

Neither of them acknowledge Clark's bed and its rumpled sheets, its telltale damp patch. Clark sees Bruce's nostrils subtly flare. The room smells like sex, and so do they. It's unmistakable.

"Did you get what you need?" Clark asks. His heart won't seem to calm the hell down, like Bruce's proximity is triggering some kind of fight or flight response.

"Yes," he says. He glances sidelong at Clark and abruptly closes the laptop. "Did you?"

Apparently a rhetorical question, since he goes to leave while Clark is busy floundering over what he means, whether for his article, or—ah. The guy at the bar? He can't mean this. Whatever this was. And surely he has enough discretion that he wouldn't pry—

He must mean his article. "No," Clark says. "Nowhere near."

Of course he means his article. He must expect Clark to bullshit it without attending the panel, because that's what he would do—so Clark doesn't expect it to bring Bruce up short the way it does. He mitigates his surprise quickly, a flash of his eyebrows that drop into their customary furrow. "Too bad," he says. "I'm heading back to Gotham first thing."

It's a perfectly relevant piece of information. Clark struggles with the context. "Sure," he manages.

"Enjoy the rest of the expo." Bruce says. "I'm sure it'll be… stimulating. Good night, Clark."

Things get pretty weird after that.

Not that they weren't weird before. Clark's baseline for normalcy is something of an outlier even before Bruce is tossed into the mix, but the intrusive erotic thoughts are new, and about as welcome as getting a pornographic pop-up while browsing for an apple pie recipe. As a consequence, he's spent more time than he'd like to admit staring into the middle distance and willing his erection to subside.

He's also spent just as much time feeling increasingly guilty about the whole thing, though for Moritz's sake more than Bruce's. He wonders whether he should send her an anonymous gift basket or something, but decides that it would probably be weird. Also, she might think it was from Bruce. It does seem like something Bruce Wayne might do. So, tasteless as well as weird.

Clark leans with his arms folded against one of the cave's workbenches. Bruce is giving him a rundown on the next stage of their case, which is intercepting a good old-fashioned exchange of stolen goods, namely some data on a flash drive. Clark tries to nod in the right places.

When Bruce had come into his room that night, her scent still clinging to him... if Clark had kissed him then, he might have been able to taste her. Is that what Bruce had wanted? Had he somehow intuited Clark's attraction before Clark himself had, and had decided to rub his nose in it? Or was the whole thing just Bruce working off some frustration over having to deal with Clark at all, who he alternately condescends to and handles with kid gloves, as though a civil middle ground is a no-man's land.

But even that damping thought, along with the cave and its bomb-shelter aesthetic isn't enough to put the brakes on Clark's spontaneous fantasizing, apparently. Bruce's mouth is moving, which means he's still speaking and Clark should still be listening, but then there's the flick of his tongue as he wets his lips, and Clark's imagination is determined to take that and run with it.

What would have happened if Clark had tried to kiss him? He's been intimately acquainted with Bruce when he's abandoned his control, but since Clark came back, he's been utterly unflappable. Would that have thawed the ice water in his veins? Would he have cast Clark down onto the bed in single-minded passion, torn his slacks open and licked his lips just like that before—

"Clark," Bruce says, sharp enough to echo. In the shadowy corners of the cave, bats rustle their wings and then resettle into sleep.

Heat immediately rushes up Clark's neck. He should probably get a lid on this. "Right," he says. "Sure, yeah. Lou's Bar, Lower East."

Bruce exhales, long and patently irritated. "If there's something you'd rather be doing, I can take care of this myself."

"You wouldn't have asked for my help if that were the case." Clark hesitates, then commits to some bullshitting. "Sorry I was distracted, it sounded like a—like there was going to be some trouble at a soccer game in Madrid. I think stadium security has it under control now."

Bruce nods, ruffled feathers apparently smoothed over. "Meet me by the ATM on the corner of Harbor Street. Nine-thirty, no later. Wear something suitable."

Suitable. Right. "Are we done? I'm already five minutes over lunch."

"Good as."

Clark turns to leave, pulling his tie away and his shirt open. If he can get back to his desk within thirty seconds Perry probably won't chew him out too badly.

"Oh, and Clark."

Clark turns. Bruce's eyes flick from the exposed gold and red of his crest, then to his face.

"Stick to lying by omission. Outright doesn't work for you."

It's a quarter of ten and Clark is starting to get annoyed. It isn't like Bruce to be late; doubly so when its a rendezvous he specifically arranged. Clark checks his watch once again, and wonders if it's set wrong. It's the most likely and least worrying explanation.

The bar is fifty yards away on the corner, occasionally admitting or spitting out a patron. None of them have been Bruce. There's only so much loitering Clark can do before he'll start looking suspect, so he heads over to the ATM again. He already has enough cash on him, but he could get another twenty out for luck and check the timestamp on the receipt in the process.

But that reads 9:48 as well. His communicator is in his back pocket. He'll give Bruce two more minutes, and then—

Clark senses someone in his periphery. Still not Bruce, unless he's taken to dousing himself in drugstore aftershave. Clark ignores the man as best he can as he tucks the notes into his wallet. He's already way too close than is either polite or comfortable, and then makes it worse by actually leaning on the wall next to the ATM, one arm outstretched, caging Clark in on one side.

"Can I help you?" Clark says, since the guy's made it impossible to not acknowledge him at this point.

No reply, just the guy's mouth-breathing. Clark wonders if he's about to be shaken down for the meager contents of his bank account. He sighs inwardly, prepares to pretend to be scared, and turns to size him up.

"As a matter of fact, you can," the guy says in a New Jersey accent that's strong enough to strip paint. He's tall, broad, very greasy, and has issues coordinating his prints.

And, inexplicably, he is Bruce after all. Clark can see his own bewildered expression reflected in the mirrored aviator sunglasses he's wearing. At night. There are a hundred and one expressions of disbelief that would be both appropriate and understandable here, but he finds himself calmly saying, "You're late."

"A wizard is never late," Bruce says, still in that abrasive drawl. He winks. At least Clark thinks he did, unlikely as it seems—it's hard to tell under the ridiculous shades—but his mouth twitches sideways under its glued-on pencil mustache and he clicks his tongue.

He didn't draw any fingerguns, but that doesn't make it okay.

"What," Clark says, "is this."

"Boys' night out," Bruce says. "Coulda made an effort."

In the absence of any further guidance beyond 'suitable,' Clark had opted for jeans and a white t-shirt. Simple, timeless, and thank god he hadn't worn flannel or their patterns combined would have blinded everyone in a three-mile radius.

"Bruce, seriously."

Bruce leans in and tips his sunglasses down his nose. "That's Matches Malone to you, kid."

Clark pushes his own glasses onto his forehead so that he can pinch the bridge of his nose. Well, at least he's less of a rampant distraction like this. "You didn't tell me this was an undercover persona deal."

"Sure I did," Bruce says—or, Matches, as the case may be. He's so unlike the detached, screwed-down man Clark has been trying to know that it's frighteningly easy to imagine he's somebody else entirely. It's not the first time Clark has wondered if Bruce's rigorous compartmentalization sometimes gets the better of him, and he's sure it won't be the last. "That's why you gotta pay attention instead of wandering about with your head in the clouds."

"I've had a lot on my mind," Clark says.

"Then hows about you stop worrying that pretty little head of yours and cut loose for a night."

A book of matches appears by sleight; Matches tears one loose and presses it to his lip, and then, because he's not already enough of a nightmare, gives Clark's ass a smack.

Clark stares at him. Matches smirks back.

"Let's get this show on the road," he says, tapping his commlink into place and sauntering towards the bar. In the absence of any other reasonable response, Clark follows suit.

He should definitely have found something cutting to say, because Matches insists on spreading his hand in the small of Clark's back and smiling like he's taking him to prom. The handsy attitude is at odds with the low, matter-of-fact information relay that follows, even if it's delivered with lashings of wiseguy.

"Listen, I got me some tidings that says a deal is going down. Info changing hands. What I need for you to do is listen out for some particular words and point out to me who's saying em, real subtle-like, you know. I can take care of the rest, so you go ahead and make yourself scarce after that, capiche?"

Clark stares at him, mesmerized by his inability to see anything of Bruce at all in this man. It's as fascinating as it is unnerving—or maybe that's just the lime-green plaid tie.

Matches' hand slips.

"Right," Clark says, shifting the errant hand further north again. "Let's get this done."

Lou's Bar is a parody of the worst dive Clark can collage together in his imagination; it makes the truck stop he tended in Yellowknife look like a four-star Michelin restaurant by comparison. The floor is sticky, there's a jukebox playing classic rock and a fight breaking out over by the pool table. The whole place is wreathed in cigarette smoke despite Gotham successfully passing a smoking ban several years ago.

Matches strides up to the bar and pours himself onto a burgundy pleather stool whose upholstery stuffing is making a bid for escape. He takes a handful of complimentary beer nuts, and with flagrant disregard for the integrity of his digestive system, eats them.

He glances over at Clark and pats the barstool next to him. Clark takes a fortifying breath and joins him. His jeans stick to the material and make a peeling noise when he shifts.

"Matches. Wonderful," the barman says. "What'll it be?"

"Depends, you seeing any action on the game tonight?"

"Get outta here, you think you're in some kind of sawdust joint?"

"Smells like it. Ah, whatever. Gimme a Jack and coke then, Lou, same for my friend. Put it on my tab."

"It's Earl, and you don't have a tab."

"Then be a pal and open one, yeah?"

"Once I know you're good for it."

Matches makes a show of patting down the front of his jacket and checking the inside pockets, then tosses a crumpled note onto the bar with a sigh.

"If you don't mind I'd rather have a beer," Clark says, but Earl has already turned away to stack ice into a couple of smudged glasses.

Matches turns a mirrored stare onto him. "We ain't here for a good time, kid."

"I can believe that," Clark says. He thanks Earl when he slides the tumbler to him and is ignored in favor of the patrons by the pool table, where things have taken a turn for the bare-fisted. Earl yells at them to knock it off.

"Alright, what've we got," Matches says, leaning into Clark's space. He rests one hand on Clark's knee like he needs to keep his balance, and heat immediately gathers at the back of Clark's neck.

Over by the table, one of the pool players raises his voice again. "—by the end of the week I swear to god I'll take your fucking knives and shove them one by one—"

Clark clears his throat. "It's not as bad as it sounds. They're arguing about money, but—I think, uh, I think one of them roped the rest into a multi-level marketing scheme."

Matches snorts. "Okay, what about that guy." He jerks his head towards a man ensconced in a grubby-looking corner booth. He's around Clark's age, blond, a couple days stubble, nondescript except for the way he's hissing into his phone.

Clark listens in on their conversation. It's fairly cryptic, but he can get the gist. "He was supposed to meet someone here. A business deal. His contact is late and is being evasive about it."

"Sounds a likely place to start." Matches pats Clark's thigh. "Okay, get your ass outta here."

"I don't even get to finish my drink?"

"For once in your life," Matches says, dispensing with his surreptitious mutter. He's loud enough to be heard over the jukebox's power balladeering. "Could you just do what I ask? Huh? Would that be so hard?"

Clark sits back, affronted despite himself. It's one thing taking this from Bruce, but to hear it from Matches and his sloppy manner is somehow infinitely more insulting. "Hey, okay, listen—" he says. Some of the patrons glance their way and then back at their drinks.

"You're pretty, kid, but it don't outweigh this high maintenance bullshit. I don't keep you around because I enjoy your backtalk."

That ass. Since they're acting Clark may as well play his part with as much verisimilitude as his indignation will allow, which is a lot. "What, you think I'm with you for your sparkling personality?" he said. "You have the emotional depth of a cup of coffee, but at least coffee's pleasant in bed first thing in the morning."

"Harsh," Earl remarks.

Matches shrugs. "Fair."

He's lackadaisical enough about it that it sends a jolt of exasperation through Clark. He remembers that time in the Bearcat when he'd taken a drink to the face and borne it stoically. Bruce probably doesn't quite deserve that, but he tips the dregs of his Jack and coke in his lap anyway.

Matches hoots in delight, and Clark decides that, actually, he should have thrown it in his face after all.

"Seriously, where do you get off treating me the way you do?" Clark discovers that he is more than indignant. He might be legitimately angry, and he lets the momentum of it carry him. "I'm not some toy for you to play with. I'm a human being. I have feelings that matter, so stop treating me like—like—"

"Whoa kid, chill out," Matches says, but Clark has hit a nerve—his shoulders have squared; a muscle in his jaw tightens. "It ain't like that. We're good together, right? Could change the world."

"Maybe if your ego got out of the way for five minutes," Clark says. He turns his back before Bruce can tell just how real his upset is. "See you around, Matches."

"Nice job," Bruce subvocalizes. "Very convincing." Clark hears the patter of ice as it hits the floor: Matches standing up. Then, loud and brash as he catches Clark's wrist, "Hey, wait. Let's not part on bad terms, yeah? How about one more for the road."

Clark turns with a question ready, but Matches kisses him before he can get the words out, wide-mouthed and aggressive, tongue and more tongue and his mustache tickling. He tastes like egg roll. It's absolutely terrible from every conceivable angle, and yet—Clark makes a strangled noise and pushes Matches away. He looks utterly unchastened. He flutters his fingers in a childish wave.

Clark backs out of the door and into the cold night air of the street. He strides a few dozen yards down the street until his hands stop shaking and he's calm enough to say, "Was that necessary?"

He gets a distracting double impression of Bruce's voice until he filters his hearing to just the comms. "Yeah. Got our guy paying attention. I'm about to buy him a drink. Stick around, fire escape in the alleyway. I'm going to need to you to play lookout."

"Listen, Bruce—"

"Not now."

Clark grits his teeth and doubles back. He finds the vantage point easily enough; he hunkers down on the rusting metal steps and discovers he's more affected than he has any right to be. He makes a dismayed noise.

"Everything okay?"

"Fine. What am I looking out for?"

"You should be able to see the men's room from there."

Clark gets a sinking feeling that the evening has yet to hit rock bottom. He blinks away the brick skin of the bar's walls, and sure enough, there's the bathroom, amidst a webwork of old lead piping and moldering cavity insulation. He stares at the cracked ceramic tiles while he listens in on Matches and his vulgar flirting.

"You got the look of a guy who's been stood up." There's a synthetic crinkling noise as Matches slips into the booth next to their target. "How 'bout you drink with me."

"I'm expecting someone," the guy says.

"Yeah, I can tell. How long you been expecting them?"

There's a stilted silence. Clark hears the guy pocket his cell and sigh. "Shouldn't you go chase after your boyfriend?"

Matches sniffs. "Nah," he says. "Truth? I fucked that relationship up from the word go. He's better off."

"That's rough," the guy says in a vaguely sympathetic fashion.

"Yeah, no kidding. So, you come here often?"

A snort. "How's your success rate with that classic?"

"Better than you'd think on account of my irresistible charm, but I can see you like to play it cool." Matches leans an elbow on the table. "No sweat, I can handle a long game. So what's a good-lookin' guy like you doing in a shithole like this?"

"Christ," the guy says, but laughs. "Being, uh, stood up, I guess." Clark hears his pulse pick up slightly; he can detect a particular shift of chemical signals, a thick scent. "Okay, sure, why the hell not—I'll get the first round. You had the shittier day."

"You said it," Matches says, smug. "Hey, listen. I gotta go dry myself off. This ain't a state befitting a man of my dignity."

Clark redirects his attention to the bathrooms. Matches appears soon after; a blaze of color amidst the dingy tile and obscene graffiti. He makes a cursory effort to dab at his pants with the one remaining paper towel in the dispenser, then occupies the first cubicle. Awkward. Clark averts his eyes, but it doesn't sound like Matches is making use of the facilities.

"Is he following?" Bruce says, back to his usual register. Clark sweeps his vision back to see Matches loosen his tie and unfasten the top button of his shirt. Beyond him and through another wall is the bar, the corner booth. Two unattended drinks. Their target is making his way along the grimy hallway that leads to the bathrooms.

"Yeah," Clark says. "Twenty seconds or so. Bruce—"

He doesn't bother asking what the plan is. That much is apparent. He's expecting another incident that exceeds the usual structure of his daily life, such as it is. He feels a murky kind of anticipation over what's about to transpire.

"Not now. Let me know asap if anyone else is about to make an appearance. That's all I need you to do."

Their target pushes the bathroom door open; it swings shut heavily behind him.

Clark wets his lips. "And what are you going to do?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?"

The guy slowly eases himself into the confined space of the cubicle alongside Matches, who wastes no time in getting to his knees on the filthy wet floor and unzipping him. He's back into his Jersey patter as effortlessly as switching to a different radio station.

"That shirt is something else on you," he says. "Should be criminal, what it does for your shoulders."

The guy's wearing a shapeless zip-front hooded sweater. "Thanks," he says anyway.

"Shut up," Matches says warmly, and proceeds to go down on him. The guy chokes out a curse and grabs at Matches' hair, upsetting its greasy pomade so that it falls in his face. It looks the way it does in the rare times when Bruce has pulled off the cowl and Clark is allowed to see him halfway, as close as he gets to unguarded in the liminal hours of the early dawn.

No, Clark tells himself, watching the wet slide of Bruce's—Matches' mouth along the guy's dick. He's not going to get worked up over this. If Bruce's hotel room tryst had managed to avoid being sleazy by a slim margin, then this encounter is making up for it in spades.

It sends Clark off on another attempt to unpick the dense tangle of Bruce's motivations, the cause and effect of the decisions he makes. This—this mission, such as it is, Bruce's approach to it, the manipulative, plausibly deniable way he's gotten Clark to watch, his attitude towards Clark in general—Clark still doesn't know if this is a second exhibitionist data-point or the first, and what conclusions to draw from it either way. He remains as unclear as ever on where he sits in Bruce's list of priorities.

In the bathroom stall, Matches makes a rough noise in his throat, tongue working over the head of the guy's dick as he pulls out. He knows Clark is watching. Clark knows that he knows he's watching. Saliva glistens in the corner of his mouth.

Clark is not worked up over this. Matches' hands insinuate their way around the guy's ass, slipping into the back pockets of his jeans to encourage him to push back in, and deeper. Clark's grip on the fire escape railing tightens. He clings to it for a good ten minutes before the guy finally comes, yanking Matches onto his dick for a few long seconds then slowly pulling him off by the hair.

Matches lean over and spits into the toilet, scrapes his lower lip through his teeth, and spits again.

Would he, if it were Clark he'd just—?

Clark exhales, long and steady, and harrows out that thought before it can take root. It's over with, Bruce has lifted the flash drive, and there's only a minor dent in the railing.

"Long time since I did this," the guy says. "So, like—"

"Shut up," Matches says, still abundantly genial. He closes the toilet lid and sprawls with his back against the cistern, and Clark unequivocally cannot watch the rest of this. Desire churns in his stomach, and disgust at himself for watching as much as he has. He was raised better than this. He closes his eyes; he can still hear well enough to give a heads up if anyone's about to crash this private party.

He can also hear wet, slick noises and heavy breathing, shoes sliding over the floor and the hollow thunk of a skull coming to rest against porcelain. "Jesus, you got a beautiful mouth," Matches groans, except he's not quite Matches any more.

Clark rests against the building wall and presses the heel of his hand between his legs. Breathing is unaccountable difficult; he's trying to do it evenly but his chest is tight and his exhales are coming out hard and ragged like he's on the verge of a panic attack—and God, Bruce must be able to hear that down the commlink. There's no way Bruce can't hear that.

"Listen to you," Bruce murmurs.

His arousal is like a hot rock in this gut. Clark fumbles his pants open and comes as quietly as he can against the building's grubby bricks, listening to the man who once tried to kill him with single-minded fervor and who brought him back from the dead with just as much conviction, whose back he's been trusted to watch even though sometimes he acts like he barely trusts Clark at all, getting blown by a stranger in a public restroom. It might be the most shameful sexual encounter he's ever had—if he can even call it that—but all he feels is lightheaded.

He hears Bruce make a rough little noise and his breath stops hard. His pulse-rate plateaus then suddenly spikes, and then gradually returns to its usual calm baseline. The music from the bar swells suddenly.

"Somebody's coming." Clark immediately regrets his choice of words, but Matches just hustles the guy out of the cubicle.

"I gotta clean up, I'll follow you out in five."

"Alright, alright—drink's waiting for you."

Bruce gets to his feet and holds the flash drive up over his head between finger and thumb like a goddamn trophy, then somehow eels his way out of the bathroom window despite his shoulders being twice its breadth. Clark hastily zips up, wipes his palm along his thigh and hopes the wet smear on his jeans isn't immediately noticeable, then drops down into the alley to join him.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Bruce says.

Clark reviews the evidence he's been provided. Bruce seemed confident that the guy would be receptive to his advances, so he must have done enough legwork to know he was the right target all along. Bruce could have gone about this in an entirely reasonable fashion without involving Clark at all. Bruce could have picked the guy's damn pocket at the bar. But he hadn't.

"No, you're not," Clark replies.

"If there's something you want to get off your chest, go ahead." Bruce cleans his hands on his jacket then shrugs it off, discarding it in a nearby trash can. In the bar, Clark hears the guy finish his drink and set it down. His fingers drum on the tabletop.

Bruce peels off and drops his fake mustache, then treads it underfoot. The shades go in his back pocket and he pushes his hair back with both hands, and just like that, Matches is nowhere to be found. Just Bruce, disheveled and wary and weary, and that makes it difficult for Clark to find anything to say at all.

The cave's monitors are on, but there's nobody home. Squared up next to one of the ergonomic keyboards, Clark finds a note written in Bruce's blocky engineer's hand, and on top of that, the flash drive.

I'm busy tonight. Thought you could take a look at this if you're not off saving the world.

Which means Bruce wants him to run comparisons on the flash drive data and the names they got from Moritz, and cross-reference those with the other data points they've established. Something the petaflops of computing power Bruce has stashed under concrete and running water could do in moments, but also something Bruce presumes Clark could learn from by doing manually, as though he doesn't do this kind of grunt work on every other assignment for the Planet.

Clark is, on the whole, tired of being underestimated. With a weary sigh that's for nobody's benefit but his own, he sweeps his cape aside and takes a seat in Bruce's ridiculous office chair. He pushes the flash drive home and the screen blinks on instantly. A host of windows auto-open: the contents of the drive and a number of sub-files; the folder of contact details from Moritz's phone; and, docked down the side of the window, the lakehouse's security feed from a half-dozen different vantages.

Clark minimizes the security pop-out. In the remaining windows, an interminable list of names stares back at him. He sighs again and pulls the camera feeds back out; he would rather accept the invitation to spy on Bruce making a month's worth of liquid meals to freeze than do this without additional stimulus.

Only Bruce is not juicing parijat bark and other indeterminate greenery. He's in the living room, with company, and the second figure is definitely, assuredly, not Alfred. Not unless Clark has drastically misread the nature of their relationship. He cautiously clicks his way to a different camera.

Bruce has a lot of surveillance on his property. A lot.

There is no sound on the feeds and can't justify listening in, but he can lip-read well enough. Clark passes a hand over his face, rests it over his mouth, and leans forward on his elbow.

How's your security? Bruce's guest asks him. Are there cameras?

Everywhere, Bruce says. Every last inch.

Clark can perfectly imagine the timbre of his voice; the particular lazy drawl that's not quite Wayne, but isn't Bruce at all. The 'I'm being my genuine self' affectation. He must want something from this man.

Will you watch this again later? the man asks.

He doesn't catch Bruce's response, but his guest seems to approve.

Bruce's guest is just tall enough that he doesn't have to go to his toes to kiss him. Clark watches the way Bruce's fingers fit around the man's waist; how he inhales sharply and leans into his body and kisses him back. Then Bruce attacks the man's belt and Clark stops watching.

"Okay, sure," he says into the hollow ambience of the cave. Sex, for Bruce, is part of a toolset that he's refined like any other. He's demonstrated this repeatedly, so it's not as though Clark is unaware. This, though. There's no excuse, because this is him blowing off steam, apparently. This is not work, this is not for show. This is not a… horizontal interrogation.

Clark diverts his attention to the list of names in the adjacent window and doesn't wonder who the man is, how Bruce met him, how they got to this point. He sorts the names alphabetically and begins his cull.

By the time Bruce has coaxed his guest into the bedroom, Clark is down to three dozen names. There are at least seven cameras in the room. One is permanently blacked out, but he can sense the thread of an electric current still running to it. This is how Clark knows that it's embedded in the headboard. The remaining cameras offer a variety of angles and, in Clark's opinion, one unnecessarily artsy view using the reflections in the expansive glass windows.

Twenty-two names left to rule out; double-checking them against scans of various documents of dubious provenance and/or quality slows things down enough that it starts to feel tedious. He glances at the nested window, where Bruce has lost his jacket and his shirt is half-unbuttoned. In the dark reflection of the lakehouse glass, the guest shoves Bruce back onto the bed, one hand flat in the center of his chest. He goes down easily.

Clark inhales and turns his attention inward. He doesn't want to hear the shift of the bedsprings or the noise he knows that Bruce will eventually make. He resents the fact that he knows to anticipate it at all. He resents the fact that he is anticipating it regardless, and that he is already half-hard in his suit because of it.

The guest gathers the crumpled mess of Bruce's shirt and hauls him up from the bedsheets by its front. Bruce gets his elbows under him and smiles; a quick, sharp thing, permission and challenge all at once, and without hesitation, the guest slaps him across the face. There is no sound, but Clark can hear the crack as clear as day. His senses are still reined back so he knows it was his imagination, but it still sends a jolt through him.

Bruce rolls his head back and his chest rises in a deep, satisfied sigh. The guest draws his face back up, fingers curled around his chin and jaw, and slaps him again. A lazy backhand, this time.

Bruce's hips jerk and press against the man's thigh. Again, he says.

Clark squeezes his eyes shut and minimizes the window entirely.

Fourteen names. He clicks, clicks—clicks the window open again. Bruce is naked except for his shirt and one sock.

Nothing Clark hasn't seen before, which is messed up enough on its own. Bruce's guest is stroking himself languidly, and with a small frisson of shock, Clark realizes where his other hand is. Come on, Bruce says, and shrugs off his shirt. He gets himself up and onto his knees, forearms flat against the wall above the headboard. If the camera there had worked, Clark would have had an intimate closeup of his navel and the scatter of hair down to his groin.

Come on, Bruce says again.

If Clark looked, he'd be able to see—as though this isn't enough of an eyeful.

What are you waiting for?

Greedy, his guest says. He runs his hand down the back of Bruce's thigh and calf and peels off his one remaining sock. The fingers of his other hand push in deeper, hard, until Bruce is all but flat against the wall, his hips rocking against the headboard and a grimace on his lips, then the guest pulls out and slowly feeds his cock into him instead. Clark watches Bruce's body take him effortlessly, like he's prepared himself for it, because of course he would have. Like it's a demonstration, though of what exactly—his amenability to receiving pleasure? His physical aptitude even in something like this? Maybe his indifference toward sleeping with strangers, or sleeping with anyone at all.

The guest holds Bruce's throat, bends his back into an arch, and fucks him.

Clark closes his eyes and rubs them. Three names left. That's more than good enough for a start, though no doubt Bruce would have preferred two at a maximum. Well, he can look a gift horse in the mouth all he wants, all he'll get is his fingers bit. Clark sends the information via text message.

He hears clearly the chime of Bruce's phone. His senses unfold into the empty tranquility of the lakehouse, where there's one pair of lungs breathing, one heart beating sedately, and not a tortured bedspring to be heard.

"Oh," Clark says, as he watches Bruce, on screen, openmouthed and panting, a white-knuckled grip on the linen. "I see."

Bruce is perfectly staged on his bed, ankle crossed over his knee and reading a folded-over newspaper. He's up to his neck in Armani, though the way he's wearing it like a hair shirt tells Clark that he never had any intention of allowing a stranger to help him out of it.

His phone is next to him on the coverlet, face down and askew. A blue LED on one side pulses gently, an unread message.

"Clark," Bruce says evenly, without looking up from his paper.

"You know," Clark says, "you can be real passive-aggressive for someone who punches people for fun."

Bruce places the paper on the nightstand. "I don't punch people for fun," he says. "It's a last resort when reason isn't getting me anywhere."

"Have you considered being more reasonable?"

"What's this about?" Bruce seems to notice his phone for the first time. He check the message, then sets it atop the newspaper.

"You know what you get when you mash a potato?" Clark asks him.

Impatience flickers across Bruce's face. "You can be blunt with me," he says.

"You get mashed potatoes."

"Edifying. Thank you."

Clark takes a moment put a name to what he's feeling. Ah, that's right. Outrage.

"The hotel," he says. "The bar. And now this. What is it you're expecting from me? What is it you want?" How's that for blunt. Something in Clark's chest flutters uneasily. Well, it's out there now. Pick your words carefully, Ma always told him, because they can't be unpicked.

Bruce gets to his feet, buttoning his suit jacket. He takes a few measured paces to the perimeter of the room and inspects his own reflection in the lakehouse window, and Clark's, gauging him without having to make eye contact. The sky has broken into carmine streaks as the sun sets; the lake glimmers with the last of the light.

Then he turns, folding his arms, his hands tucked into his armpits and his thumbs pressing against his biceps. It's the most outwardly defensive Clark's seen him, which is how he knows it's something he's deliberately telegraphing. Performative contrition so that he doesn't have to apologize for anything directly.

Clark has never wanted to shout at anyone the way he wants to shout at Bruce right now.

"Do you want me to break it down for you?" Bruce says this as though he's offering to go over spreadsheet projections for the next fiscal quarter.

"Sure," Clark says immediately, because it's the simplest answer, the most truthful answer, and because it's the one he thinks Bruce wants to hear the least. "Why don't you do that."

Bruce opens his mouth, his tongue pressed to his back teeth as though he's thinking—as though this isn't something he hasn't already spent considerable time on. Bruce knows how to say what he wants to say, but often he picks faulty words on purpose. Ones that can be taken any number of ways, read backwards and forwards and inside out without Clark ever reaching a firm conclusion, except that Bruce doesn't want him to reach one.

Clark waits for him, carefully banking his temper.

"The Superman," Bruce finally says.

"I wish you wouldn't say it like that."

"The Superman," Bruce repeats over him, louder, "is a being unlike any the world has ever seen. It's not solely about what we know he can do, the observable metrics. The flight, the strength, the fire and ice. They're uncanny but they're known quantities. It's the rest, the things we have to take at his word that he can do in the first instance, and then trust when he describes his limits, not knowing if they're genuine limits, or ones he imposes on himself and could break whenever the urge takes him. Essentially, he could—"

"I don't—"

"—he could hear a whispered secret five time zones away. He can see through walls. Any wall he wants. Do you understand, Clark? We are all exposed to him, at his whim, at all times. All of our personal affairs, our intimacies, our privacy, laid bare. All he has to do is look."

"Do you think I'd do that?"

"You did," Bruce says, the barest catch in his voice, "do that. Just because I was thinking of you didn't mean you were invited."

An uprush of mortification displaces Clark's frustration, and a good proportion of his anger. Had he assumed that Bruce—

He hadn't even tried to rationalize it to himself. Bruce's love life is so often treated like public domain, and—yeah. Obviously some part of Clark had assumed that he wouldn't mind. Faced with the reality of it, this reasoning doesn't hold much water.

Bruce swallows, and swallows again; Clark watches his throat work, and he just—lets go for a fraction of a second. It's unforgivable to be pushing this boundary and now of all times, but Bruce's pulse overwhelms his hearing even as he's chastising himself. Clark can smell the first flush of arousal on him, strong enough that he can almost taste it on his tongue.

"You liked it," he says, wonderingly. "You like to be watched."

"Not specifically. And it wouldn't make this okay if I did."

"The first time, at the hotel. It wasn't the plan. But the bar, and—specifically. Specifically, you—"

"This is beside the point, Clark."

"You like me, specifically, to watch. Because I can. And you like to make me watch," Clark says, "because you can."

"You're the Superman. I can't make you do anything."

A superb lie. Clark might take the time to admire it later. "Then I guess that absolves you of all responsibility," he says. "Neatly done. I'm impressed."

"You peeked, Clark. You're supposed to be a paragon of morality."

"Well, I'm not. I'm just a guy. Are you going to double down on being an asshole about this?"

Bruce finally unfolds his arms. His hands go straight into his pockets. "All right," he says. "Since we're both assholes here, maybe that means we could approach détente."

Of course, trying to discuss anything like this with Bruce was always going to be a grueling war of nerves. Clark finds himself in enfilade. "God, Bruce," he blurts. "Can't we just be friends?"

"Friends." Bruce's laugh is sharp but not entirely unkind. "Is that what you want?"

"I think it'd be a good place to start."

The sunset has burned itself out while they argued. The bedroom is lit by a single dim nightstand lamp; tree shadows loom outside the lakehouse windows and make the room feel strange and vast. Bruce takes a deep breath through his nose, shoulders rising, chest expanding, and lets it out slowly. Clark could probably have heard the thud of his heart even if he weren't already listening for it.

"Friends," Bruce says, "friends don't watch friends while they're fucking somebody."

"I guess," Clark says slowly, "that friends don't trick friends into watching their sex tapes, either."

"As a rule. So, you see my problem."

"I do. And now that's established, maybe we can work it out."

He knows as soon as it's out of his mouth that he's taken the wrong tack. Bruce has obviously opted for the safest interpretation even thought it would result in his least desired outcome for tonight, because he's frowning as though he's had a sudden revelatory insight into Kryptonian sexual mores, or perhaps Midwestern ones. Great.

"It's not a precondition for me, if that's what you're thinking. Being friends."

"Hm. Didn't peg you as the type for one night stands."

"I don't want a—" Clark only barely catches himself. He resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "That's not what I meant."

"Then say what you mean."

The man is unbelievable. "Maybe you should lead by example for once."

Bruce pulls a considering expression, eyebrows raised and mouth pursed as if he's really giving it thought. His hands finally come out of his pockets. One goes around Clark's wrist in a confident, if over-warm, grip.

The other catches Clark by the chin. His thumb presses into the dip beneath Clark's lower lip. Clark parts his lips unthinkingly and lets Bruce kiss him, just a light brush of his mouth. He lingers, but it's nothing scandalous.

Bruce releases him and takes a step back. "Let me know if you need further clarification."

"You sound like an internal memo," Clark tells him, which earns him a twitch of amusement. "You know, you could have just said something."

"And what could I say? People think you're divinity personified, Clark. You look the part, at least. They must throw themselves at you on the daily. Surely you're tired of it."

"There's some irony in hearing that from Gotham's most eligible."

"Nobody ever called Bruce Wayne for help. How often do you come to someone's rescue only to be propositioned?"

Some people have a lot of curiosity and little shame. Some are meek in their advances, shy, almost. Some are insistent about settling their debt of gratitude right then and there. Some never needed his help at all. He knows how to extract himself from these situations with everyone's respect and dignity intact, but with Bruce, that never seemed to be an option.

"Rarely," Clark says.

Bruce hears the lie for what it is. "Do they tell you you're beautiful?" he says. "Do they want to kiss your fingertips, or the hem of your cape?" What small distance he'd put between them vanishes; his suit whispers against Clark's uniform. "Do they go to their knees for you?"

"Is that what you want to hear, Bruce?"

"It's something I've wondered about."

Clark is impressed by the increasing honesty of his statements. He rests his hand against Bruce's neck, just above the line of his shirt collar; his thumb grazes the corner of Bruce's jaw. Bruce's eyes flutter closed, and Clark feels a shiver ripple through him. Their reflections are disparate ghosts in the lakehouse window, Superman in full regalia, Bruce in civilian clothes, his head bowed to him in anything but deference.

"Are your cameras on?" Clark knows the answer, he just wants to know what Bruce will say.

"Not unless you want them to be."

"I don't," he says, after a pause that seems to please Bruce as much as if he'd said yes.

"Lights," Bruce says and the room responds, flooding with inescapable, clinical brightness. It glances off the bleached white sheets of the bed and the slick tile floor. It turns the windows into perfect mirrors, banishing the outside world.

Except the outside world could see them just fine, if it were to look.

An uncertain thrill coils down Clark's spine as he backs Bruce against one of those windows. Bruce is docile, his expression expectant. Every worry-line and tired crease in his face is picked out stark by the unforgiving lighting, every scar and imperfection, every seam and thread and fleck of lint on his suit. He's deliberately shed every shadow he has.

"Everything's private property up to the road past the manor," Bruce says in a low murmur. "Of course, that's no guarantee."

Clark can see himself over Bruce's shoulder, hesitation on the pristine reflection of his face. If there's one thing that he can be certain about here, it's that the lakehouse's perimeter is secured tighter than a chicken coop in weasel country.

"I'm hardly A-list these days, but still worth a buck or two to the gossip pages. Anyone could be lurking in the treeline." He tugs Clark's cape through his fingers. "Are they going to get a scoop, do you think?"

"I'd be able to tell if anyone was out there," Clark says. It's an automatic reassurance, though he knows even as the words leave his mouth that all he's doing is picking holes in the scenario that Bruce is painstakingly constructing.

Bruce just makes an amused sound. "It wouldn't be the first time I've been caught en flagrante. It would be yours, though, wouldn't it? But not because the Superman is discreet."

He's right: it's because it has never crossed Clark's mind to do anything like that. He wonders if he has the courage to spin a tale. Something that pushes the boundaries of appropriateness for his public image. He wonders if Bruce would believe him if he did, or if that even matters.

"There was one time," he says, experimentally.

"You're an unconvincing liar." Bruce's hand rests lightly on Clark's hip. He leans in, the picture of attentiveness. "But go on."

Doesn't matter at all. Clark flushes pleasantly, caught out because he doesn't have a specific story in mind, but he's a writer by trade, a storyteller. And sometimes in the quiet hours when sleep refuses to come for him, he spins his own implausible narratives. It's seductive to the imagination and, at times, immensely fulfilling.

"I stopped a mugging," he says, "a couple weeks back. In Gotham. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it."

"Maybe I did. Refresh my memory. The man you saved, tell me about him."

Well, that effectively strips Clark's story of any coyness over pronouns. Bruce is an eminently patient man, except when he's not. He suppresses a smile. "I couldn't tell you much. He was striking, handsome. Well dressed. Very grateful. He was shaken, I think, but not as much as I'd have expected. I offered to take him home." Clark pauses. "For safety."

"Did he take you up on that?"

"He has an apartment in Robinson Park. If it had been the penthouse I could have set him on down the roof and left. It was two-thirds up the building, though. So he pointed me to the balcony and then invited me inside." Bruce has many apartments around Gotham. Clark doesn't know if any of them are in Robinson Park, but that's of no consequence.

"Of course, being the upstanding citizen you are," Bruce says, "you sketched him a salute and flew on home."

Clark shifts on his feet. "No. I went inside. He was… very straightforward. I hadn't even closed the balcony doors behind me before, he, uh, he—"

He braces a hand next to Bruce's head. His skin looks ghostly in contrast to the rich dark outside, and so he moves it to Bruce's shoulder instead. He can't make eye contact with his own reflection; he would be embarrassed to know what he looks like right now.

"What did he do, Clark."

Clark is in full blush of arousal. His erection just barely brushes Bruce's thigh. If he angled his hips just a fraction, he could—it would draw attention to it. He takes a steadying breath. This is a fantasy of particular design, and it doesn't go quite like that.

He closes his eyes. "He thanked me. Then he ran his fingers up the inside of my thigh, and touched me, there. Right—" He inhales sharply as Bruce's warm hand slides from his hip and over the bulge in his uniform. "Right there."

"Like that?" Bruce squeezes lightly and returns his hand to Clark's hip.

"Yeah," Clark says breathlessly. It drives home all at once how desperately he has wanted this from Bruce. Just the simplest touch, meant entirely for him. He clutches at Bruce's shoulders, and Bruce turns them as if in a slow dance until they're stood side-on to the window again.

Clark glances down. His suit has politely adapted its elasticity to his body's current state; his dick juts into the scarce space between their bodies. To anyone outside he'd be cutting an unmistakable profile, backlit by the bedroom's intense lighting.

He swallows. If, somehow, there were someone watching, he tells himself they'd see no more than silhouettes.

"Tell me what happens next," Bruce says.

His breath is quickening, his body temperature rising, and Clark doesn't miss the tense shift. What does happen next? Sometimes he imagines being taken to bed, where the world dwindles to just the two of them, and afterwards Bruce lets him say tender, sentimental things to him and accepts them unconditionally.

But that doesn't seem likely this evening, or any evening.

"He gets to his knees," Clark says, "and tells me that now he needs to invent God all over again."

It's quite some bullshit, but exactly what Bruce wants to hear, if the way he drops prayerfully into a kneel is any indication. His bones grind against the hard stone floor and he rests his forehead against Clark's thigh. Clark takes his chin and turns his head to the window so that he can see them both in the reflection. Bruce's blood is pounding and his breathing is uneven; Clark can smell how this turns him on, how he must be straining in the confines of his slacks.

"I know this isn't your fantasy," Bruce says. "It's mine."

"That hasn't been a problem for you up to now," Clark says to his reflection in the window.

Bruce's expression shifts as though he's feeling chastised, or maybe it was the movement of the trees beyond the mirrored glass, swaying in the night wind.

"On your feet," Clark softly says. "Eyes on me."

Bruce obeys, turning every ounce of his attention onto Clark. He lacks all possible mediation in this; the intensity of it is thrilling. Clark waits for him to brush down his knees and straighten his sleeves, then he reaches out, tucks his fingers into the front of his jacket, and with a sharp tug, sends its buttons spinning across the floor.

As though gathering his patience, Bruce takes a slow breath, a held inhale. Before he can voice his annoyance, Clark does the same to his vest and shirt. Buttons rattle to the tile like hailstones, the fabric falls aside—and for god's sake, he's wearing an undershirt, too.

"You weren't going anywhere, were you?" Clark asks as he takes it by the hem and tears it. The thin cotton pulls apart readily.

Bruce watches him evenly, his heart shaking in his ribcage. "Not until later," he says. He'll be in a different suit, then, and a different mood. He won't let Clark pick him apart so easily.

Clark gathers the loose fabric of this suit in his fists. He could lift Bruce and march him to the bed, lay him out there with his clothes flayed over the sheets like a pinned butterfly and ride him into next week, but even after all the ways he's seen Bruce fuck and be fucked, Clark realizes that there's little here he can take at face value. He still doesn't know for certain what Bruce actually likes and what's for show. Even being on show might be for show—but it's what got them here in the first place.

Whatever the case, Clark isn't going to come away from this without kissing him properly, something that doesn't taste of Chinese food or is to prove a point, so he reels Bruce in and pushes the tatters of his suit off his shoulders and brings their mouths together in full view of the outside. Bruce escalates immediately, drawing Clark in with the curl of his tongue and the careless tug of his teeth on Clark's lip.

His cock is rigid beneath the soft wool of his slacks. Clark runs his hand over the rise of fabric as they kiss. Bruce moves as if to grab his wrist, but he checks himself, or perhaps decides it's plain not worth it, and instead drags his hand through Clark's hair until his fingers are sticky with product, pulling him in deeper again and again. Maybe he's anticipating that Clark will tear his pants off him the same way he did his shirt. Instead, Clark inches the zipper down. He doesn't even bother unfastening the button, just dips his hand inside and pulls Bruce's cock out, leaving him bare and wet, thrust obscenely from the fly of his slacks.

Bruce groans when Clark doesn't touch him any more than that. He may be urgently hard, but he's not inclined to beg for it.

"Against the window," Clark suggests.

Bruce turns and presses his cheek against the glass. His breath fogs across it and he watches Clark with one sharp eye, as if he's trying to decide what Clark will ask of him next.

It's probably only an illusion of having the upper hand, but it's kind of nice nonetheless—even if he's going to be predictable in the end. Clark runs his hand down Bruce's spine, over the bumps of vertebrae and each intersecting ridge of scarring, pushing his body forward. Bruce's breath hisses out of him as his chest touches the cold glazing, his nipples. The tip of his cock, maybe. It'd leave a smudge of precome.

Clark leans against him, slowly pinning his thighs to the glass and his own dick against Bruce's ass. He hears the soft hitch of his breath and his cock squeak against the window, wet skin caught between the heat of his stomach and the hard cool glass.

"I hope your security is as tight as you think it is," Clark says in his ear. "Imagine what you look like right now."

"Christ," Bruce softly says and closes his eyes, shuddering against the entire length of Clark's body. One hand reaches back and gets a bruising grip on Clark's thigh as though it were possible to pull him in any closer; the other crawls up the glass. Clark laces their fingers and holds Bruce against the window while he presses his clothed goddamn dick against Bruce's clothed goddamn ass, just—god, just simple pressure is working for him right now, but next time he will think this through.

Next time. After all this bullshit, there had better be a next time. Clark takes a half-step away from the window and Bruce falls back against him like he trusts him absolutely. Their mirror images hold an unavoidably clarity.

"Look at you," Clark says, and Bruce does as he's told, taking in the scarred expanse of his own solid chest, leaning back against Clark and framed by the red of his cape. The desperate curve of his cock, the wet head of it kissing the window. Their fingers, still tangled. Clark meets his eyes in the reflection. He sees Bruce's face twist up as he bucks hard, his head rolling back into the crook of Clark's shoulder.

"Fuck," Bruce says viciously. He makes that noise, that breathless, rough sound that Clark has been waiting for, and his cock jerks hard; the muscles in his abdomen tense and strain, and he comes with force onto the glass.

For a moment Clark thinks his legs are about to buckle, as though he's the one who's just come like his life depended on it. He sets Bruce solidly back onto his feet and waits for the lightheadedness to pass, but is immediately shouldered towards the center of the room and to the bed. He gets the hint and all but sprawls onto the mattress while Bruce manhandles him onto his back. Bruce's hands roam all over him, as though he needs to touch every inch of him, or as though he—

"How do you get this fucking thing off," he snaps.

Clark fights down the urge to laugh and adds 'orgasm' to his mental list of things that do not chill Bruce out even a little. "Here," he says. He takes Bruce's hand and guides him to the hidden leylines in the suit. It peels off him in ribbons.

"Ridiculous," Bruce says. Or he might have, it's hard to tell with his mouth full of Clark's dick. It might have just been a satisfied groan. Clark considers reaching for a rejoinder just in case, but Bruce nudges his knees further apart and strokes two fingers over his ass while he blows him with intent, and Clark is done for. He gives Bruce's hair a warning tug, but Bruce just sighs around him and rubs with his fingertips, and Clark can't do anything but come blissfully down his throat.

Bruce pulls off with a frankly disgusting slurping noise, and Clark's laugh finally breaks free.

"It was about to run down my chin," Bruce says primly, which doesn't help at all. "For Christ's sake, Kent."

"Right, right, sorry," Clark says, and wills his laughter into submission. His toes are tingling, nerves snapping in delight. He feels pretty fantastic. The apprehension and uncertainty of the past few weeks have evaporated away and the promise of future bullshit is yet to coalesce on the horizon. The only way this could be more perfect was if Bruce wasn't wiping his hands on the comforter.

Done with his clean-up, Bruce kicks off his pants and boxer briefs and comes to rest at Clark's side. The lakehouse is tranquil now, except for the heady rush of blood in his ears. Clark glances at the window, at the come sliding down it, and at their undignified slump in the smeared reflection—the rumpled sheets, his suit littering the bed, Bruce in just his socks and his hair a mess. "This makes for an unflattering post-coital photograph," he observes.

Bruce grunts and props himself up onto one elbow to check. "Had worse published," he says, and falls back.

Clark takes a breath. "Bruce," he says. "Listen—"

There's a pause. "I'm listening," Bruce says, instead of telling him to be quiet, which is novel but could have come at a better time.

"I'm sorry I looked," Clark tells him. "I'll be more mindful of your privacy in future."

"Yeah, well," Bruce says, and that's about as much apology Clark's going to get in return, apparently. He rolls over to grab his phone, then back—and then back a bit further. His thigh is damp with sweat, his cock softening against Clark's hip. "You can make it up to me. We've got to get in tight with at least one of these suspects, and it's about time you did your fair share."

It takes a moment to sink in. "Wait, you want me to sleep with them?"

"Not all of them," Bruce says, and the corners of his eyes crinkle just slightly. "I'll let you do the prettiest one."

"That's not—you're joking."

"Am I?"

"Bruce, come on—"

"I'll keep an eye on things, make sure nothing goes awry."

"Yeah, I'm sure you will."

"Think of it as field experience."

"That's—Bruce, come on."

"Fine. I guess if you prefer to watch..." Bruce tips Clark's face to him and drops a kiss on his lips to soothe his affront.

"How about," Clark says, "you turn out the damn lights."

"Whatever works for you." Bruce snaps his fingers and the lakehouse falls dark—apart from the tiny red lights of a dozen security cameras.