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The first time, it’s accidental. Well, not accidental, Superman doesn’t exactly make mistakes. But it’s–
It is whatever it is and Clark can’t stop himself from looking Bruce up and down, worriedly.
Its less up-and-down and more left-to-right, Clark standing over where Bruce is all but strapped to a medbay cot. His head’s bandaged tightly, hair matted down with blood and he’s grumbling about something - most likely being put on bed rest - but Clark, for all his heightened hearing, can’t hear anything over the steady pull of blood in Bruce's veins and the minute, excruciatingly slow forming of bruises at the neckline of his gown.
His leg is lightly fractured too, and they’re working on that but Bruce will still have to come up with another excuse about skiing in the Alps, but it’s the marks snaking down his chest that have Clark’s attention.
It’s not that Clark has never seen him battered and bruised before, it’s simply that he has seen it a million times over but only how much Bruce has allowed. And what Bruce allows, even with him, is limited.
He can understand why, to an extent. Surrounded by beings who get thrown through buildings and come out the other side without even a scratch, it’s got to be difficult. So, of course, Bruce limps off like a dog trying not to show he’s hurt. Simple. An unbreakable pride with a good dose of determination and nobody knows he’s hurt, except for Clark. Clark who hears every hissed breath, every muscle tear and bone break, every dizzying moment when someone gets a lucky shot on his friend.
And so he listens distantly to Bruce cursing his situation through a haze of painkillers and looks under his clothes to the bandages and gauze beneath to the tense bruises and deep cuts, the fractures and bleeds, and he promises it won’t become a habit.
-
Mornings like these, they don’t happen often. Hell, he’s had more mornings start with the apocalypse than these. But, Rao above, does he treasure them.
Mornings like these where it’s just them, Superman and Batman, the World’s Finest. Finest at what, he’s still trying to figure out, while watching Bruce spoon sugar into his morning coffee like his life depends on it. It goes on long enough that Clark begins to think that perhaps Bruce is waiting for him to mention it. He wouldn’t put it past him, even at this time.
Eventually, Bruce sets down his spoon, and tastes his coffee with trepidation written all over his face and Clark marvels at how open he is when he’s tired, how expressive his face becomes. Whatever he tastes, he’s satisfied with it as he sits across from Clark and quirks a mildly amused smile at him.
He knows he makes a sight. If the Daily Planet could see him now, he’d never be out of the papers. Hair flattened on one side, the other spiked up and curled slightly at the ends with his cape drawn around his shoulders like a blanket, staring blearily down at his cereal and then back to Bruce. Bruce himself isn’t faring all that much better, shirt untucked with mismatched socks that had almost made Clark laugh when he’d noticed them, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but the moon.
He expects it, he supposes. Bruce has always made it clear he’s more comfortable on familiar ground, not out in space. Either way, he’ll be back there soon, with a Wayne Enterprise meeting he’ll turn up fashionably late for in an hour, bruises sore under his clothes after a long night with the League.
Clark almost feels bad for him, until he thinks of how he starts monitor duty in half an hour. It’s tedious but necessary, and Superman doesn’t complain about the necessary despite how much he wants to just fall back asleep in the cafeteria.
Still, on mornings like these, where everything is quiet and they are the World’s Finest something, Bruce will slide a cup of tea to him and he will sit, in silence, with him, and he will smile that amused smile at Clark’s lack of composure and Clark will look him over, slowly, languidly, taking in everything.
There's a pack of mint gum in the pocket of his slacks beside car keys and a leather wallet, and it’s so normal that Clark’s heart twists. The braces for his mismatched socks are slipping down his calves and Bruce’s hair is tiredly styled to hide the fresh stitches at his temples, and Clark has to grip his thigh to stop himself from reaching out and tracing over the neat threading.
These times, where he gets to take the time to look Bruce over and hear the steady thump of his heart, where he can pretend they’re at the kitchen table in his apartment and he has a long day at the Daily Planet ahead of him, these times are the ones he treasures.
Bruce smiles at him over his coffee, just the barest tilt to his mouth, and Clark smiles back, blowing steam off the top of his tea.
–
On the Watchtower, there are communal showers. Closest to the docking bay, and used mostly post-mission when all anybody wants to do is wash the grime of space off their skin. They had never really been a problem for him, not until Clark had started his non-habit.
The water pressure is downright sinful, closer to what he’s got at the Fortress that would bruise human skin than the one in his apartment and the hot water seems to never run out. It’s a good set-up, one Clark is thankful for as he sighs happily, dust finally sliding off his battered muscles.
It’s a good set-up until he turns, hands in his hair, to find Bruce across from him, doing the same, face turned up to the spray, eyes closed and water running down the sharp lines of his chest. Suddenly, the water pressure is a lot more sinful.
It’s not often that he sees him this undressed. His suit seems able to withstand just about anything the world can throw at him, and any other time he’s in finely cut Armani. It’s not often that he sees him this undressed and yet, still not entirely bare.
He shouldn’t– it’s a line he promised he wouldn’t cross. It’s going from just checking his friend is okay to- to-
There’s a fresh wound that Clark can make out just over his hip, the stall door blocking the rest, and he promises himself it’s just to see it’s not too bad. Bruce’s face remains upturned and relaxed, hands working through his matted hair with careful precision and Clark breathes out shakily, eyes drifting back down.
His eyes follow the laceration with laser focus, over the pronounced cut of Bruce’s hip, through the tan lines and down to the inside of his thigh, the cut curling around thick muscle. There. Sorted. Seen. There’s nothing else to see, at all.
Except–
Except there is and Clark’s breath catches in his throat, choking him for a brief moment before he turns back to face the wall, focusing on the heavy fall of water on his shoulders.
It’s not his place to ask. Not his place to even know. Clark breathes out carefully, hands falling from his hair to hang limply at his side, ducking under the spray, eyes shut tightly as if it helps. It doesn’t, particularly, and serves only to block out everything but what he’d seen.
It is, most definitely, not his place to have seen the thick scars running along the sharp lines of Bruce’s hips or the faded but still jarring crescent marks along his shaft, like fingernails, or the thick indent along his length that Clark takes a moment to realize is from a deep wound, stitched up wrong.
There is anger, hotter than the water pouring down on him and there is a ringing in his ears that threatens to knock him over and lead in his stomach, a bitter taste like guilt or maybe just stinging tears.
Whatever it is, it pushes him to shut off the shower and grab a towel, drying off at superspeed and ignoring the brief look Bruce sends him, water still running down his body, curious like he knows something is wrong. Whatever it is, it follows him to his quarters and then to his bed, under the blankets, until he exhales into the dark space and promises, not for the first time, that he’ll stop.
–
It’s a gala. Or a benefit. Or just an excuse to throw money around. Whatever it is, Clark is stuck covering it all night.
Gotham at night is always brighter than he expects, despite how many times he’s been there. Criminals and the everyday people alike seem to come alive at night in Batman’s city in a way others dont in Superman’s. Night time in Metropolis is for winding down, take-out and quiet dates, sleeping off the nine-to-fives. In Gotham, it’s a whole other story. The socialites and bachelors make their flashy appearances, and of all of them, Bruce Wayne makes the flashiest.
He seems brighter than usual, but that could just be the cameras lighting him up, sliding out of his limo in a suit so expensive it makes Clark feel cheap just by looking at it. He’s used to it around Bruce, when he paints on his vapid smile and his wrists do acrobatics as he talks, loud and carefree like he owns the world. It’s not the real Bruce, but it’s a part of him as much as Batman is, an echo of what he could be, perhaps. The billionaire playboy with a good, if a little idiotic, heart.
The look Bruce sweeps across the crowd of reporters and guests is empty, moving right through them all, Clark included. He resists the urge to look for fresh injuries, despite easily smelling the painkillers he’s taken earlier.
There is no other way to describe how Bruce enters the hall than swans. Quite airily, too, broad shoulders set back comfortably as he immediately grabs a flute of champagne from the closest waiter.
Clark should be milling about, he knows. He should be getting quotes left and right, fumbling with his glasses when some old money thinly veils a remark about his suit, finding the latest in socialite news. Definitely not standing by the bar, staring in mild amazement at how easily this persona fits Bruce like a second skin.
Bruce, all but hanging off someone's arm, champagne sluicing in his flute, laughs. A full-bodied, loud and demanding attention, exaggeratedly wiping tears from his eyes kind of laugh. Clark almost smiles.
Almost, because Bruce does something that isn’t in his no-doubt catalogued, pre-approved movements and expressions for Brucie Wayne. He doubles over, laughing breathlessly, and hugs his midsection with one arm.
Clark frowns, ever so slightly, and ignores the bartender asking politely if he’d like a drink. He’s almost afraid of what noise will come out of him if he opens his mouth, eyes fixed on Bruce straightening out, smile sharp as he pulls the cuffs of his sleeves down and smooths his hair out.
Clark can’t help knowing what he’s hiding. A smattering of bruises up his arms, thick and purpling down to his wrists and his entire midsection is bandaged tightly, more bruises underneath and beyond that- beyond that, Clark swears his ribs are in pieces.
Logically, he knows they’re not. Logically, he knows Bruce will be fine. Logic isn’t at the forefront of his mind and Clark bites his lip, separating old breaks from new, and counts them out just to torture himself.
By the time he gets to twenty-seven, the bartender has poured him a drink anyway and he takes it gratefully, downing it in one.
–
It is not, he firmly tells himself, a habit. Maxwell Maltz said it takes a minimum of twenty one days to form a habit. This is only the eighteenth. He’ll stop before then and maybe he’ll confess that he’s been invading his friends’ privacy and Bruce will do that thing where he surprises him with how calm he is about it and–
There isn’t a shred of guilt in him. Or anything to suggest Bruce wouldn’t shun him for the rest of his miserable life if he knew. Nothing to suggest he’ll ever stop, nothing to suggest he’ll ever tell Bruce.
Why there would be any, he doesn’t know. He’s just using what he’s got to check on his friend, to make sure his bruises are healing and his ribs aren’t fractured anymore. There is nothing perverted about it, Clark reminds himself, as he stares at Bruce’s hands under reinforced kevlar and leather, knuckles bloodied and all it does is make Clark’s face heat up minutely.
There’s a question on the tip of his tongue about bare-knuckle boxing that almost spills out as Bruce outlines their monthly duties on the Watchtower. It’s not his business to know if Bruce takes off the gauntlets to feel the harsh hit of flesh against flesh, if he enjoys it at all.
His eyes flick back up to Bruce’s, almost irritated but mostly, somehow, shocked at the blind spot that hits him where the cowl is. It’s not new, lead lining always there, but it still jars him. After the past half hour of mapping his body out meticulously from the pattern of blood in his arteries to the oils on his skin, it’s unsettling to find something he can’t see of the man. He notes, slowly, the edge of a bruise spilling out from the cowl, angry and red, and he burns with the need to map that out too, if it reaches over his cheekbones and turns his eye bloodshot and sore.
Bruce’s mouth works fluidly, coming to the end of his talk, and Clark focuses on the rows of neat teeth and the fillings that litter his mouth. The fact that his wisdom teeth haven’t been removed or knocked out is just another fact to add to his growing pile of information on his friend.
Clark almost feels guilty for not listening to a word of what he’s saying, eyes flicking back to where Bruce’s hands rest on the table. He notes, faintly, the scars along his knuckles, old ones ripped away by the fresh injury, skin torn and slick with extracellular fluid. He wonders, briefly, if it hurts to have them rub against the gloves. He’s seen Bruce after wearing the suit for whole weekends on missions, the raw chafing along his skin and joints that had made everyone wince.
It doesn’t matter, he supposes. Bruce would never do anything about it anyway.
–
It’s not often that Robin visits the Watchtower. It’s not often that Clark even sees Robin these days, and that makes him ache something fierce with each successive remembering of the fact. Dick’s smile had somehow always softened Batman, made the snap of his cape somehow gentler, as if his mere presence could smooth down his edges. He’d liked that.
And Jason–
Jason had done good too.
Tim, however, Clark hadn’t seen much of. But he still adds the same softness to Bruce, in different ways from the rest. Less a contrast and more a mirror, his smile often matches Bruce’s, sharp like he’s in on a joke nobody else is, but more free. He’s good for Batman, at any rate.
He notes, dumbly, that Bruce is walking slower. At first, he assumes it’s for Robin’s benefit, Tim’s strides still so much shorter than his own but one quick look under Batman’s suit and it becomes evident.
If anyone bothered to look Clark’s way, at that moment, they’d probably be creeped out by the intent focus he has on Bruce’s feet as they make their way across the cafeteria. They’d be right to, he supposes, but is far too engrossed in the bandages running up Bruce’s right calf, the ankle support on the left that does nothing to hide the quickly healing sprain from the first time he'd done this. He walks slower, but with no less authority, Robin trailing along beside him as they talk quietly, Clark forcing himself not to listen, just for once, to have some semblance of self-control when it comes to Bruce.
It’s not his place to know how he got the injuries. It’s not his place to even know of them, and yet he does anyway.
He swears, if he had known, he would have stopped looking. But he doesn’t, and Tim cuts across Batman to grab Kyle’s attention, and he doesn’t shut off his prying sight fast enough.
The barest glimpse has him turning his head so fast he almost thinks his neck has cracked, foot tapping nervously on the floor, trying to dispel the image behind his eyes.
Tim; Tim who barely reaches Clark’s chest, who smiles that sharp smile like he knows something Clark doesn’t, who follows Batman out every night and– and it’s something Clark has learned to accept. Robin keeps Batman in check, and the Wayne boys keep Bruce from being alone in his own home. The bruises and kidnappings and dangers are all something that the Robin’s had accepted, and so had Clark.
But there are swelling bruises up Tim’s sides, angry and red and faded smatterings of scars under his mask that Clark tells himself are just freckles. Those are there too, light dustings of freckles on Tim’s pale cheeks, mixed in with what looks to be, as Tim turns his head to talk to Kyle, shattered glass patterns.
Below those, on his thin collarbones and wiry muscles, scars that pre-date his time as Robin, thin marks in his bones where they've healed and they’re years old.
This isn’t what he set out to see. He looks back to Batman, and finds him watching Robin too as he animatedly talks with Kyle, his expression softer than Clark has seen it in a long time. This isn’t what he set out to see, either, and something close to guilt eats at him.
–
Sharing their identities had been an important moment. And with it had come an opportunity for Clark to understand the man beneath the cowl a little better. It becomes routine, so slowly he barely realizes it’s happened, for Bruce to push back the cowl and rub his eyes tiredly as he goes over paperwork or pull off his gloves to feel warmth seep into his fingers from a fresh cup of coffee.
It’s a routine he likes. Clockwork. An hour and a half of staring at a screen and Bruce is smoothing out his hair after pushing off the cowl, five minutes after returning from a mission and his gloves are off, reaching for a hot cup of coffee.
But always, like clockwork, he pulls the cowl back on and the high edges of his cheeks are lost to Clark and his nimble fingers slide back into their gloves and Clark watches every time.
Which is, he supposes, the reason it takes Clark an embarrassingly long time to realize that Bruce hasn't pushed the cowl from his head tiredly. The lead lining simply isn’t there.
It takes him a moment to realize and then a moment longer to realize what that means.
It’s Bruce, which means this isn’t nothing, which means he knows. He knows, he must, and this isn’t nothing and this is–
Bloodshot eyes and a fading, yellow bruise that has been hidden by the cowl for three days, the edge just barely peeking out. And Bruce’s eyes, blue and calm and unreadable for the white lenses except–
Except Clark is looking under them and Bruce is looking right back even as he talks, fluidly, to the rest of the League and his mouth tips up, that amused smile, eyes fixed on Clark as he tells the group that the brief is over.
That amused smile softens Bruce the same way Robin does, and his cape snaps gently as he turns to leave and Clark notes, with a warm feeling in his gut, that it is day twenty-one.