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As many of the occurrences in Bruce’s life do, the reality of getting older seems to come out of nowhere. Of course, he is very much aware of his age, but he never seemed to feel it until now. Bruce estimates that he has a decade or so left of peak physical fitness, and then everything will start to deteriorate after that; he’ll start getting joint pain, he’ll be less skilled of a fighter—
But until that happens, it's the little things that remind him that he’s aging. Like the fact that he’s constantly fucking tired.
Bruce has always found it difficult to sleep simply for the sake of sleeping. Unless he’s about to pass out, there’s simply no reason to waste vital time that could be allocated towards going through case files, patrolling for a little bit longer— literally anything more productive. So the most unprecedented development was that he found himself falling asleep naturally more often than usual, without the need for sleeping pills. And not just at night— but at inopportune times and in random places.
It’s not uncommon for Alfred to have to forcibly drag him out of bed in the mornings. But that’s usually the effect of sedative-induced sleep and plain stubbornness. This new flavour of fatigue is almost immune to coffee and stimulants. He feels it in his bones; how badly he wants to sink into the warm embrace of sleep, nightmares be damned.
The first time it happens, he’s in a video conference and his chin is resting on his palm, which is an obnoxious pose that fits Bruce Wayne’s MO perfectly. It’s kind of warm inside his office, and the back of his chair is at just the right angle. His eyes keep closing again and again, and suddenly his CFO is calling his name, and he’s snapping awake and giving a half-hearted apology to a bunch of frowning board members.
Okay, kind of strange, but not completely inexplicable. He was up until 5 last night and only had two cups of coffee this morning. Not atypical for Bruce to be caught not paying attention during a meeting either, but he won't let it happen again. He catches up on a little sleep after that, and adds some more cardio to his routine.
Except then it happens again. And again after that. He nods off in the batmobile on the way home, in the cave after he’d only been cataloging security footage for 40 minutes. He’s 20 minutes late for brunch with Diana one day, simply because he was unable to pull himself out of bed and get ready. She ends up finding it funny, but Bruce not so much. This is completely abnormal for him.
Usually, when Bruce takes naps, he makes sure to set an alarm for 90 minutes, allowing him to get what is essentially a full cycle of sleep, but not too much so that sleep inertia builds, and he wakes up feeling like shit. Now— the alarms don't even work on him anymore, and Alfred doesn't seem so happy to have to shake him awake with extreme force. Bruce begrudgingly starts making blueprints for a tactile alarm.
He figures that, if relenting and allowing himself an extra hour or two of more sleep is necessary to keep him as functional as possible, then it's a sacrifice he’ll need to make. But the standard 8 or 9 hours every night is not just not feasible.
It’s a late night in the hall after a fight, and Barry and Victor are in the lounge, talking and laughing loud enough that Bruce is able to hear it all the way in the meeting room. It’s strangely comforting in a way, to work somewhere with other people’s voices as background noise instead of the hum of his servers.
He’s going over some paperwork— just bits and ends he needs to tie up before going home later— when Clark walks in, in civvies and with his hair loose. He’s holding his laptop and the ratty spiral notebook that Bruce sees him with often.
Clark smiles, hesitantly. “Hey, I was just— can I work in here with you?”
Bruce blinks, pleasantly surprised. “Sure,” he lifts his hand to pat the other side of the couch, but thinks better of it at the last second, leaving his hand hovering awkwardly. “Is it an article?”
Clark sits down on the couch beside him, barely a foot away. “Yeah, I just need to finish up this last part. Is that paperwork?” he asks, nodding to the stack Bruce’s holding.
Bruce nods, pushing down a yawn. He could probably use another cup of coffee, but he doesn’t want to get up now that Clark’s here. “The usual,” he says, and lifts the corner of his mouth.
Clark grins. “Of course.” And that’s Bruce’s cue to look away before he starts staring. There are just a couple more pages he has to do, and then he can get back to the cave to take a nice cold shower to energize himself enough for a light patrol.
The presence of Clark beside him is difficult to ignore; he periodically flips open his notebook to read his notes, chews on his lip for a second, and then types something on his laptop. Sometimes he pushes his glasses down to rest on the tip of his nose, and that’s even more distracting. Bruce pushes away thoughts of domesticity and what it would be like to do this regularly, and focuses on jotting down what property damage the League was responsible for in today’s fight.
A half hour or so passes, and the sound of Clark’s typing fades into the background along with Barry’s and Victor’s voices. And then it’s like a sequence of events that a tiny part of Bruce’s brain is aware of, but not his full consciousness; his head is drooping down to the left, onto a warm surface, and everything after that is a blur.
Bruce wakes up an indeterminable amount of time later, to his head resting on Clark’s shoulder, the soft fuzz of his sweater against Bruce’s cheek, and Clark sitting there typing as if everything is normal. Bruce freezes for a second, mortified, and then slowly sits up, rubbing his eyes.
He bites the bullet and looks over at Clark, who had momentarily tensed when Bruce had moved, and is now slightly flushed in the cheeks.
“Sorry,” Bruce says, mouth reacting before his brain has a chance to catch up. “I’m— I’m sorry.” He says again, like an idiot, and then grabs the paperwork and gets up before Clark has a chance to reply. Bruce passes Barry and Victor on the way out, but doesn’t acknowledge them, cheeks burning.
Unbelievable. Except for the fact that it's pretty damn believable. Decades of late nights and insufficient sleep, and he just can’t do it anymore. It's not like how it used to be, when he was able to survive on power naps to keep him refreshed. Bruce has no choice but to admit it; He’s fifty years old, and his body can no longer withstand the torture of going on patrol and immediately gluing himself to the batcomputer until the early morning. He needs actual consistent sleep, for longer than 3 hours at a time, and perhaps while it’s still dark out.
And if that’s what he needs to do to avoid embarrassing himself again, then Bruce supposes he’ll have to put up with it.
Later that night, when he reluctantly goes to sleep 4 hours earlier than usual, Bruce tries—and fails—to not think about the warm comfort of Clark’s shoulder.
The League has just fought Parasite, who took it upon himself to disturb Metropolis in the most obnoxious ways possible in order to get Superman’s attention. They’re all exhausted—well, everyone except Clark and Diana—and the trip back to Gotham on the Flying Fox feels inconceivably long. Bruce’s bones ache, his left leg hurts to stand on, and he’s had a headache for about 4 hours straight now.
Back at the hall, Bruce focuses his best on getting through a quick debrief. They’ll reconvene tomorrow for a more thorough one, because as much as the others like to call him bossy, he’s not cruel enough to keep them here for another hour or two. He doesn’t even think he would be able to make it through that.
After that’s all wrapped up, and the others are on their way out to pass out or eat pizza or whatever it is they do, Bruce takes a minute to change out the batsuit and into spare clothes. When he steps out of his room, he has to lean against the wall opposite the elevator and take a couple deep breaths. Bruce just needs to pull himself together enough for the elevator ride down to the underground level, where the batmobile will take him back home, and then—
“Bruce?” Clark is right beside him, still in the suit. He lifts a hand to his arm to steady him, and Bruce tries his best not to lean into him.
He and Clark haven't talked much since the incident the other day. It's mostly just been Clark giving him worried little glances every now and then, and that’s just what Bruce needs, another person to give him trouble about running himself ragged. Clark might as well adopt a British accent too while he’s at it.
“What is it?” Bruce manages to ask, mustering the minimum amount of alertness to hold a conversation.
“You look like you’re about to pass out,” Clark frowns. “Let me take you home.”
Bruce shakes his head. “It’s fine, Clark, I’m—”
“Please?” Clark says, eyes wide with worry, and Bruce is so weak—not an ounce of fight left in his body—that he is forced to nod in agreement.
Clark lifts him gently, and heads up through the Eastern skylight and up into the air. It’s colder outside, and Clark accordingly wraps his cape around him. Bruce’s chest feels heavy. He has no idea what he could have ever done to deserve this sort of concern, but he simply does not have the energy to push it away anymore. All his feelings for Clark— whatever they are—feel secondary at this moment. He tries to keep his head upright, but it falls onto Clark’s shoulder, inexorably pulling him towards sleep.
He is awoken only once Clark has landed on the lakehouse dock. Bruce lifts his hand to unlock the door, and half-expects Clark to set him down here, but he carries him all the way inside to his bedroom.
Bruce looks at him through half-open eyelids. “Clark—“
“I’ve got you,” Clark says reassuringly. “And don’t say you’re sorry again. I don’t mind. I just— I wish you would take better care of yourself.”
Bruce looks away. As right as he is, Bruce doesn’t know how to explain to Clark that he’s gotten so used to not taking care of himself that he finds it difficult to do anything else, as much as he needs to now. There will always be some residual guilt about putting himself before his work.
Clark places him gently on top of the bed, and pulls the sheets over him. Bruce stares up at him drowsily, at the gentleness of his gaze, and finds that he is not in a position to evade Clark’s kindness anymore. For all his dreams and plans about penance, making it up to Clark day by day—he never would’ve expected that he would be forgiven so easily, let alone treated so tenderly, of all things.
“Goodnight,” Clark says softly, and then leans forward slightly. “Um—“ he hesitates for a moment, and then, in a completely unanticipated move, leans down to kiss Bruce’s forehead.
Bruce’s breath catches in his throat. He opens his eyes to see Clark pulling back, and that won’t do, so Bruce grabs him by the neck and pulls him back down, pouring the last bit of his energy into a long, starved kiss that he has been thinking about for much too long.
Clark gasps softly into his mouth and kisses back, hand curled around Bruce’s jaw and tongue gentle and coaxing. If it were up to Bruce, and if he were not on the brink of passing out, he’d consider letting this go on for hours— let himself sink into the beautiful softness of Clark’s mouth until he can’t any longer.
“Stay,” Bruce says after it’s over, and tries to sound less hopeful than he feels.
Clark looks at him for a long moment, cheeks pink and curls falling over his face. Then he smiles gently, and Bruce’s stupid heart skips in his chest. “Okay,” he whispers.
As Clark settles in beside him, warm body close enough to touch, Bruce closes his eyes.