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Bruce missed the steady rhythm of the rain. In the silence of falling snow, one could hear everything: a faltering inhale, the treacherous thrumming of a heart.
"Now isn't a good time," he said.
Tonight, no wind tore at Superman's cape. Snow collected in its creases, settling across his broad shoulders. Drifting flakes caught on his lashes and twinkled in his hair.
"It's been one week, like you said."
"I'm on patrol."
Clark looked out over Gotham, entombed in white.
"And if Gotham needs you, you can go."
No bat-signal lit the soft underbelly of her eternal clouds. No sirens cried out from her bitter depths.
Not even when Bruce willed them to.
"Have you thought about our conversation?"
It was a ridiculous question. There was not a moment in which he had not thought about their conversation. If he closed his eyes now, he would confront a perfect recollection of it: the low roar of Clark's confession, the way his lips formed each word as he spoke them, the blush softening the strong features of his face…
He'd thought about it endlessly. He'd thought about it to the point of ruin.
"It's a bad idea."
"Why?"
He wished Clark would argue with him. Then, Bruce could have countered every point he tried to make, could have won. But he didn't argue. He asked questions.
He forced Bruce to confront himself.
Bruce didn't look at him — doing so would mean giving in to something unnameable. He stared out into the void of the blizzard instead, and he thought of the list of reasons he'd made as to why this could never work, his meticulously prepared debate. But he knew, and he suspected Clark knew: there was only one that mattered.
Bruce owed him that, at least. Beautiful, brimming with hope, heart beating in his hands… Clark deserved truth.
"I wouldn't survive losing you."
He would have liked the words to be strong, steady, unaffected. But they were raw. They were whispered. They tore him open all over again.
In Clark, there was the promise of a life Bruce only knew the absence of — dinners at an empty dining table, favored lullabies never sung again, clouds that never parted, that made you forget light could be anything but grey. Those things, he could survive. He had survived: grief was his oldest friend, his anchor, his safety. Before Clark — before so many conversations with questions, before learning how tender a touch could be, how kind a soul — he would never have considered making himself vulnerable to the pain of loss again.
"You won't lose me."
Clark stood there, so sure of his promises. Though the snow shrouded Gotham in cinereal darkness, light somehow found him; it reached past the edges of shadows to caress his jaw, the curve of his chest. It found a home in his eyes.
"I might push you away," Bruce's next best argument was a weak one. He had already tried to do so numerous times. He had failed just as many.
Clark's gaze found his. Too late, Bruce realized his mistake. He couldn't look away now; he couldn't hide.
"What are you afraid of?"
Nothing, the word on his tongue.
"Don't lie," Clark added, so Bruce swallowed it back down.
Quiet stretched between them.
The snow did have a sound: a gentle static. A multitude of minuscule crystals falling slowly, blanketing the earth. In that muted moment, Bruce felt the stinging sliver of a world where it could have been easy to let himself have this — as easy as breathing.
"I'm afraid I can't be what you deserve." More truth. Bruce parted with it bitterly. Clark was laughter in the kitchen, family game nights, summer afternoons. "My love will feel like a cage. I'll expect too much. I'll protect you, obsessively, even if it destroys us. The things we argue over now — they won't go away. They'll get worse. I'm possessive… and even then, I will never be able to put you first."
Superman was made for the stars, the world, the light of a golden sun. Batman belonged to Gotham's shadows, to the worst of her, and to the ghosts of promises he would not break for anyone.
Clark stepped forward, snow creaking beneath his feet. He lifted a hand. When Bruce didn't flinch away, he laid it against his cheek. The warmth of his palm was unendurable.
"Your love doesn't feel like a cage," he said, breath hovering between them like stubborn mist, "it feels like armor."
Bruce closed his eyes.
He leaned over the precipice of surrender.
"I'm needy," Clark continued. His thumb slid along Bruce's jaw, catching at the stubble. "I'll want to be around you all the time. I'll want to memorize the way you breathe, the way your heart beats. I won't be able to let you put yourself in danger without a fight, and even then, I'll still… show up. Go against orders. Does my love feel like a cage?"
Bruce opened his eyes.
"You already do all of those things."
Clark blinked at him. For the first time, Bruce saw uncertainty looming behind the veneer of confidence. He could deny himself this — but to deny Clark? To crush the bright, fluttering hope of what he believed Bruce could be to him, of what he believed they could be together?
It was still a bad idea. But… to never try at all, to let it die on the vine…
Bruce hesitated. And then he lifted his hand, fingers circling Clark's wrist. Even that choice held its own exquisite terror, like miscalculating the leap across a looming gap, asphalt rushing to greet you.
"Your love feels like falling. Like knowing you'll catch me before I hit the ground."
Clark grinned. Shadow pooled comfortably in each dimple. In the absolute stillness, in the absence of sound, Bruce could hear the leap of his heart. He could hear the release of the breath he'd been holding.
"I always catch you."
"I know."
"And you always save me."
Bruce studied him. It was a gentle moment. He should take it for the soft thing that it was. But Clark had denied him one argument already, and when he opened his mouth, the words spilled out:
"Yes. I wouldn't have to, though, if you'd just— mmph."
He said no more.
Strong arms drew him into the warmth of a hearth. Clark's lips smiled against his.
They tasted like home.