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“What on Earth is happening in my kitchen?” Alfred asked incredulously.
Bruce froze and immediately felt like he was about five years old again. As a matter of fact, he was having vivid flashbacks to a ceramic cookie jar full of brandy snaps, and the way he had withered under the disapproving glare that was exactly like the one fixed on him right now.
“I… I’m cooking,” Bruce managed. He had to tell himself to straighten up and speak with conviction, because he was an adult and this was his house and his kitchen and he was allowed to cook if he wanted to. He didn’t need anyone’s permission.
“Cooking?” Alfred asked dubiously. “I see. And would this have anything to do with your guest upstairs, sir?”
Bruce paused momentarily. How could this be about anything else but the guest upstairs? The night before had been without a doubt the very best night of his life, and it wasn’t just because he’d had sex with Clark. They’d had sex before… a few times now, but never before had they spent a night snuggling together, sharing space and breathing in time, drifting slowly to sleep and basking in the knowledge that this was it.
Or at least that was what it had been for Bruce. This was it for him… he’d found what he hadn’t even realized he’d been looking for. Everything had changed in the course of one night, and he now felt security and comfort instead of apprehension or doubt.
And only for Clark would he have gotten out of bed at this sunny, ungodly hour to try and prepare a breakfast because he was determined to be romantic… do something nice for Clark, because he deserved all this and then some.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred began, bringing the younger man back to reality. “I would be more than happy to…”
Bruce shook his head. “No. This has to come from me, or the gesture is meaningless.”
Alfred raised a brow. “This is a bit early in the morning for gestures, sir.”
“I’m capable of preparing a simple meal.” Bruce replied, trying to sound confident. “I would like to do this on my own, if you don’t mind.”
Bruce gave Alfred an imploring look, and somehow he must have conveyed how important this was to him. Alfred seemed to understand, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. “Very well,” he sighed, looking resigned. He sat down on a stool at the counter and watched, and Bruce did his best to ignore him and not feel like he had an audience.
With a relieved sigh, he went back to work. He realized he had made a bit of commotion already, knocking over a couple of heavy pans as if he had become incapable of any kind of finesse at this early of an hour. He had pulled up a recipe on his tablet for stuffed French toast – a dish that was described as being deceptively simple to make, which seemed appropriate for his skill level. And Clark had made him French toast once, a week ago at his apartment, so he was pretty sure he’d like this. And the picture on the website showed a pretty, romantic looking breakfast… it would do nicely.
There was a fresh loaf of French bread in the bread box, so Bruce grabbed it and prepared to make the roughly two-inch thick slices the recipe called for. He reached for a knife in the wooden block on the counter and heard Alfred clear his throat. He looked up to see that Alfred was shaking his head at him. He tried a different knife and got the same response. He tried the third time and Alfred heaved a sigh that betrayed how difficult he was finding it to watch from the sidelines.
“What’s the difference?” Bruce asked irritably, grabbing a knife, almost at random. But he probably should have paid a bit more attention, because the incredulous look Alfred gave when he saw a little paring knife in Bruce’s hand made him blush the tiniest bit.
Alfred sighed. “Sir, you want a bread knife. The slicer. It has a long handle and a long, thin blade that’s almost rectangular. Use the wrong knife on that bread and it’ll come out wedge shaped and ruin your presentation.”
“Right,” Bruce replied. He knew that. He selected the appropriate knife and began to cut. After two slices, he noticed they were still coming out wedge shaped, through no fault of the knife… he hoped it was more subtle than it appeared to him.
Next, he had to make pockets in the bread slices for the filling. The first two slices, he accidentally cut in half, and on the third one, he accidentally cut his hand and got blood on the bread. Alfred insisted on bandaging his hand, and offered him a smaller knife with a pointier blade tip.
“Try the trimmer for that, sir,” he said. Bruce merely grumbled and took the knife. He successfully made the pocket on the fourth slice of bread, but then he had to slice three more to replace the ones he had ruined. Those came out rather wedge shaped as well, but he was getting down to the heel of the loaf, so he’d have to make do. He practically tore pockets, slightly uneven ones, into the slices of bread and set them aside.
“Now,” he said, mostly to himself. “The filling. Cream cheese.”
“You probably should have taken that out when you started slicing,” Alfred observed. “To let it soften.”
Bruce quirked a brow. “And where was that advice when I could have used it?”
“You told me you wished to do this on your own,” Alfred reminded him. Then, reaching for a magazine he’d left there the previous afternoon, “I wouldn’t dream of offering you help you don’t want or need.” He flipped to an interview with Cameron Diaz and began to read it diligently.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t criticize,” Bruce griped as he tried to prepare the filling. He started slicing strawberries (cutting his finger this time and grumbling when Alfred pointed out that he was again using the wrong knife). The recipe said he should macerate the berries… he knew what the word meant, but he had to Google how to do it before he could proceed. He mixed the strawberries with sugar and was immediately disappointed that what he had didn’t look much like the picture on the instructions. He didn’t let them sit long enough because he convinced himself that he only had so much time left to get the breakfast ready.
He tried to mix the cream cheese and the macerated strawberries together. On the picture, the strawberries had the consistency of jam, and when mixed with the cream cheese, it looked like yogurt. Bruce’s… did not. It looked like lumpy cream cheese that was still too solid to mix, chunks of berries, and very noticeable granules of sugar. He even considered microwaving the concoction to make it a bit smoother, but he took one step in that direction and Alfred’s brows shot straight up to his hairline.
Looking again at the picture on his tablet, he asked, “We have yogurt, don’t we?” He knew they did. He knew it was one of Alfred’s favorite snacks.
“Greek yogurt, sir,” Alfred replied, somewhat concerned. “It tastes rather different than regular yogurt… and nothing at all like cream cheese.”
Bruce paused for a moment. Then, with a shrug, he said, “Don’t creative cooks often put their own spins on recipes? That’s what I’m doing.” He went to the refrigerator and found two small containers of strawberry flavored Greek yogurt. “Just the thing,” he muttered under his breath.
Spooning that into the pockets wasn’t as easy as he hoped. The yogurt was looser than cream cheese would have been and it started to make the bread a bit soggy in the places where it was sliced thinner than it ought to have been. He glanced at Alfred, who was purposely not looking at him.
“This is going to be fine,” Bruce said, mostly to reassure himself. “Just fine.” The next part of the recipe he knew he could manage. For one, it seemed simple, and for two, he had just watched Clark do it and he had made it look easy. The egg bath. He grabbed a pan (one of the ones he had knocked over earlier) and poured the milk in. Then came the eggs. He was holding one in his hand as he tried to crack the other one on the edge of the pan. It didn’t crack neatly and shell fell into his mixture.
“Dammit,” he muttered, and without thinking, his other hand closed on the egg he was holding and cracked it. He winced as he felt yolk dribbling down his palm and hoped against hope that Alfred had not noticed.
But even without looking up, he had, of course. “Be sure and clean that up if any of it spilled on the floor.”
Bruce made a face, and then he immediately felt like a child. He washed his hands, ran a paper towel across the bit of mess on the floor, and grabbed a spoon to fish the bits of eggshell out of his egg bath. He grabbed another egg and cracked this one more carefully, then sprinkled a bit of cinnamon in and mixed well. He laid all four slices of bread in the mixture to soak and then heated a little butter in his skillet. Two slices of bread went into the skillet while the others continued to soak.
He started to feel a bit anxious about the time again, so he turned the heat up, probably a bit higher than he should. While the French toast browned, he sliced more strawberries for a garnish. He was actually starting to feel optimistic about how the meal would turn out when Alfred commented, “That’s going to get soggy.”
His head snapped up and he went to the pan to discover that the slices of bread were already quite soggy, to the point that they were too limp to pick up with a fork. He was in the middle of wondering how he’d be able to fix that when he smelled something burning. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Bruce turned toward the stove. This was becoming a disaster, plain and simple.
“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed at the sight of the smoke rising from where the French toast was now burning. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” He continued as he moved the skillet from the fire, even though he knew it was too late to save the breakfast. They were practically black… and certainly inedible.
“Say it once more and I’ll send you to your room,” Alfred said drolly, not even looking up from the magazine.
“Not helpful!” Bruce barked. He paused and tried to regroup. He wondered if he should start over, but with what? That was the last of the French bread, and sandwich bread wouldn’t be heavy enough. He was trying to mentally select another dish he could make, but before he could even move, he heard the padding of bare feet coming close.
He looked up then. Just in time to see Clark shuffling somewhat sleepily into the kitchen, looking quite at home in Bruce’s robe. Clark gave him this soft smile, and Bruce just had to stop in his tracks.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he mumbled irritably.
Clark came closer, still with that same smile on his face. “I didn’t know that…” His voice trailed off as he made a face at what was going on around him, and quite likely at the foul, burning smell. “I didn’t know you cooked.”
“Clearly I don’t,” Bruce huffed.
And before Clark could respond, Alfred snorted slightly. “He doesn’t, and he won’t again, if I have any say in the matter.”
Bruce sneered, but said nothing. Alfred was right… this had been a disaster. And now Clark looked like he was trying to keep from laughing. Bruce wouldn’t have been surprised if Clark decided he didn’t want to stay over ever again.
“I was going to bring you breakfast in bed,” Bruce announced. “I thought you would appreciate the gesture.” Clark was close enough now that Bruce could have wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in that smooth, broad chest… had he been so inclined. Instead, he turned his head the other way so he didn’t have to see the look on Clark’s face.
“I would have appreciated that, yeah,” Clark replied. “But it wasn’t necessary.” Gently, with one finger hooked under Bruce’s chin, he turned the other man’s face back in his direction. “You don’t have to be good at everything. You know that, don’t you? I don’t need you to try and impress me… I’m already in awe.”
Bruce grumbled unintelligibly, and Clark grinned that thousand watt grin of his. Alfred seemed to sense that he was perhaps not needed at the moment, so he left quietly.
“You know, I cook a little,” Clark went on. “And I’m really good at ordering takeout. Even if you couldn’t handle boiling water, we wouldn’t starve.”
Unconvinced, Bruce added, “I wanted to do something special.”
“This whole thing has been special,” Clark whispered, blushing slightly. Bruce almost touched his cheek because it was so cute, and then he wanted to kick himself at becoming the kind of person who used the word cute.
“I can make coffee,” Bruce offered. That he was confident in. “Or we could have mimosas. I could do that, too.”
“How about both?” Clark asked. “And you know what makes the best breakfast, especially the morning after amazing sex?” Bruce raised a brow and motioned for him to continue, so Clark said, “Cereal.”
“You sound like Dick,” Bruce commented, moving toward the coffee maker. But he was visibly relaxed and no longer worried. It was going to be fine… things between them were too good for even cooking as bad as his to mess things up. For once in his life, he had found a relationship that didn’t have to be an act. He could go off script and Clark would still be able to keep up.
Damn, that was refreshing.
As he scooped coffee grounds into the filter, Clark nodded and licked his lips. “How about I clean up and head back upstairs and you can bring breakfast when the coffee is ready?” Then, with a playful smile, he added, “I’ll even get back under the blankets and let you surprise me, if you’d like.”
Bruce raised a brow and smirked. “Smartass.” But Clark was already moving around quickly, and before Bruce even had the lid on the coffeemaker closed, the kitchen looked like Alfred had left it the night before. Bruce reached over and grabbed Clark by the wrist and pulled him close. As Bruce went in for a kiss, brief but passionate, the first of many he planned to give Clark that morning, their fingers laced together and he could feel the corners of Clark’s mouth curving into a smile.
“Back to bed with you,” he breathed once they broke. “I’ll be up soon… and I will definitely have a surprise for you.”
Clark grinned and gave him another peck before turning away and chiming, “You better.”