Two Words

Lofty Ownership

"I remember now," Bruce Wayne says to Clark, approximately two hours and half a dozen glasses of champagne later. The man grabbed him by the elbow a little while ago, apparently intent on taking a moonlit stroll around the Luthor estate. "I do own that one."

"Right," Clark says, clutching his own drink like a lifeline. He takes a sip so he doesn't have to think of anything else to say.

"Which means," Wayne continues, with that air of ostentation afforded to the very wealthy or the very inebriated, "in turn, I own you."

"Oh," Clark says. "Kay." He notes the way Wayne is slurring his words with some interest. He's not as drunk as he'd like Clark to think. Certainly not drunk enough to hook his thumb into Clark's belt loop like that.

"So what I want to know is," Wayne says, and tugs, frowns, tugs again and this time Clark lets himself be reeled in, close enough to smell Wayne's expensive cologne, the alcohol on his breath--and something earthy that reminds Clark of dark, secret places. The moonlight catches Wayne's eye with a hard glint. "What can you do for me, son?"

Ghostly Monosyllable

It should have been him.

But Diana had plucked him from Doomsday's spikes, and it had been Bruce and not Clark that had forged into the creature with kryptonite spear in hand. Maybe it was like the papers said, a tragedy but not an unexpected one, the Batman had been careening off the rails and needed this act of redemption. Or maybe it was like Alfred said, somber and red-eyed, that Master Wayne had been very tired these last few years. So very tired.

Either way, doesn't change the fact that Clark is enshrouded in the gloom of the Wayne family mausoleum, bringing a farewell to a man he barely knew and yet whose death has struck him profoundly in ways he can't explain.

Maybe if Bruce was in his place he'd be standing in a Kansas cemetery in the late evening sun. He might linger there with hope in his heart, might whisper his name and believe it could call him from his grave.

Clark, placing wildflowers in a vase, has no such luxury.

Unzip Hasty

Bruce keeps one hand pressed over the knife wound in Clark's side, glides the other down Clark's back, then around his waist, fingertips seeking a zipper that simply isn't there. He frowns in puzzlement. "Clark," he says. It's a question.

"Here, like this," Clark says, voice made unfamiliar with pain. It was just a trace of kryptonite that did it, a pinch of the stuff ground into a powder and suspended in talcum, blown in his face. Not enough to put him out by a long shot, but enough to make him significantly more penetrable.

Bruce watches Clark's uniform ripple under his touch, material parting like viscous oil when he draws his fingers over it-- through it. An arc across his hip, deep diagonal into his groin, then a swooping line over his thigh. The fabric separates, peels away like a husk.

"Thank you," Bruce says. The bandaging is superfluous, technically; Bruce just needs him to stop bleeding on everything. The morning sun will take care of the rest.

Days later, and they're in the cave talking tactics. Clark's paging through documents on the screens and rallying off relevant info as he comes across it, while Bruce paces in thought.

After a while he realizes Clark is waiting patiently for a response, and Bruce has to admit that he's not really been listening at all. He could try to catch up the threads of the conversation and dissemble, but by the quality of the silence he suspects Clark is already on to him.

He spins Clark around in his chair and flattens his palm on the man's hip. It's a cheap distraction when he could just apologize, but Bruce's arsenal has contingencies for even the shallowest gradient.

"Like this?" Bruce says. He curls his fingers down the inside of Clark's thighs, then splits the material with the edge of his palms. Swooping lines, deep diagonals, arcs.

Clark inhales sharply. He nods, uniform ribboning away from his skin. It hits the floor with a gentle susurration. "Just like that," he says, as Bruce gets to his knees.