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It’s too much, everything’s too much. Every moment causes more, gloves, cowl, everything feels like it’s suffocating. It’s constricting, its enclosure feels like it’s shrinking more and more. It shouldn’t bother him, it doesn’t usually bother him. He should’ve known better than to go out, he should’ve let his kids take over for the night. The day was already bad but it’s now way worse, there was just too much. Lights, sounds, everything too much. He quickly made his way out of the Batmobile trying to stop it. He violently pulled his gloves off trying to rub his hands on the sides of his legs to dry off the awful sweat and quickly made it into his Bedroom, he knows Alfred will be mad. Mad at him, more disappointed though. He’ll be sad that Bruce pushed himself too much. He tried not to make Alfred disappointed but he had a look after this stuff and he knew he would be disappointed by his suit not being put up properly.
Mask, mask off. Need to get off. Get all off, he tried to breath but it kept getting stuck in his chest not letting it come out as much as he was taking in. He got it off, got it all off, one of the great things about being alone in his room. It was already dark which made it better but not enough. He quickly put his pajamas on and headed to the bathroom. Makeup, makeup needs off, bothering too much, get off. It’s off dry, dry off there’s too much sweat, too much. Tears gush out of his eyes as he tries to soothe but it’s not enough noise escapes his mouth, he doesn’t want it to, he’s spiraling, his thumbs dances on the inside of his balms. Back and forth, back and forth.
He goes from pacing to sitting on the floor as soon as he hears a noise coming from his door. His hands come to his ears as his knees place themselves firmly against his chest and he starts rocking back and forth fast. He knows someone’s there, they need to go away. There’s so much even with very little around him there is so much. His body’s shaking uncontrollably, whoever’s there is probably freaking out, he doesn’t want them to worry about him. He’s not a burden, he promises he’s not a burden. He rubs his hands against his shins back and forth, back and forth. The ac is too loud, the rustling of his clothes, of the stranger’s it’s too much. He goes back and forth from violently scrubbing his hands against his shins to putting pressure on his ears and back. He’s sorry, he’s so sorry. They hate him, they probably hate him. They’ll look at him differently if they already haven’t before now. Times a blur it could be 10 seconds or 6 hours, he doesn’t know he just knows that the person is being patient. He can’t open his eyes, he can’t look up from his knees, and he definitely can’t speak up. Noise escapes his mouth every now and then but he can’t keep it in, it hurts coming out like someone crushing his windpipe.
At least with a shutdown people could chalk that up to the strange behavior of the Batman but this no, this was, no. Bruce tried to calm down, there was only so much he could do right now. He continued over and over and over and over.
He was tired, he was always tired but he was exhausted now. Things slowly got better but it wasn’t at the same time. Eventually he was able to look up from his knees and open his eyes slightly only to see glasses and a smile before he quickly closed them back and put his head back down against his knees. “No, no, no. He is not supposed to see me this way.” Bruce thought. He likes Clark, he likes Clark a lot. He’s ruined everything. Clark won’t like him back, Clark will see him differently. Everything is bad but why was he smiling? He didn’t like this, this is horrible. He would be bad if he liked watching Bruce suffering. No, kind smile, maybe look again. He looked back up, it was Clark’s kind smile. Clark had three smiles, Bruce was a bit groggy and tuckered but he knew that. He couldn’t look up at Clark’s beautiful blue eyes but he knew with that smile they were kind as well. As if saying that it was ok, that he was there if he needed him but not in an imposing way.
His body felt so limp, he looked at the ground between them. Clark slowly shifted back a bit thinking Bruce wanted space even though he wanted Clark to stay where he was but just couldn’t force himself to look at him fully. His hands felt rough and tender as he took them off his shins, he had rubbed too much, too long and he was sure his ears were probably red and hurting from the pressure but everything was at a weird level he was too sensitive with everything but too numb at the same time. He slowed his rocking, it was smaller but still there. His eyes had water that felt thick against his skin even though he knows that’s not possible, they had somehow become part of the bags under his eyes most of it had gone on the floor or into his now soaked knees. He was thirsty, he was about to pass out. He didn’t have much energy, his ears were too sore from earlier so he knew he couldn’t put something on to take out the noise from the a/c but it didn’t bother him as much as it did earlier. He should thank Clark, he probably flew here very quickly not even changing just to check on him but he just couldn’t.
Clark was there for him and that meant something, he probably knows now about Bruce’s autism but that was something to be discussed at a later date. Bruce stopped rocking and slowly mustered the energy to get up with Clark following suit. Clark made his way around Bruce and pulled the weighted blanket partially off of the bed so Bruce could get on it without having to dispense energy but not too much that if Bruce wanted to pull it over himself once he laid down he could, which is exactly what he did. Bruce pulled the blanket back over him wincing slightly as he laid on his side with his ear pushing against the pillow. He tried to focus on Clark as the pressure from the blanket gave him much happiness but he just couldn’t, his eyes felt blurry. He looked at his belly, the dark blue button up below his open brown blazer had these black buttons that stood out a little but not enough for him to be able to focus on them. All he could do was nod at Clark’s direction which seemed to make the man happy as he went and sat on the little bench by the window waiting for something, Bruce wasn’t sure what for certain but felt that it was probably for him to sleep. His eyelids got heavier and heavier until he finally fell asleep.
The next morning he knew it was going to be a bad day but thankfully there weren’t any signs of anyone interrupting him. He looked at the nightstand next to his bed and saw two notes, his noise-canceling headphones, and his sunglasses. The first note he read was from Alfred in a typed out font. “Please rest and take care of yourself Master Bruce. I’ve taken the liberty of evacuating the house of everyone as well as cleaning and putting your suit up. I love you, Alfred.” The other one seemed to be from Clark as it was written with a black pen, most likely the one he uses for work. “I’m glad you’re ok, I just wanted to tell you that I am always here if you need me Bruce. just call my name and let me know what I can do to help. Last night doesn’t change anything between us. - C.K.” He knew it was bad last night and that it wasn’t good this morning but he was feeling a whole lot better because of the people who loved him the most. For the ones who’s able to wrangle all of his kids to leave him alone and help him and to the other that even though he didn’t call for him, he didn’t have to.