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The sun set and night slipped over Gotham like a shroud, a pane of reinforced glass separating Bruce from the certainty that encased him when he put on the suit. With the cowl, his gauntlets, and the kevlar came a divide: a shield thrust between him and the world. The five-piece suit he’d chosen for tonight — stitched by hand, crafted of the finest of fibers — served as a shield too, and yet…
“Thank you,” Clark said to the waitstaff as they dropped off after-dinner coffees. Guileless, genuine. The smile he beamed in Bruce’s direction was just as earnest. “You seem…introspective tonight. Everything okay?”
Bruce mustered up an obligingly dim-witted smile, one befitting a man of his means and reputation. “Hungover.”
“Ah.”
Silence fell heavy between them again.
Eighty floors below, neon flickered into life, and street lamps bathed the pavement in interlocking circles of jaundiced light. Above, clouds chased a waning moon.
Bruce ached to be on a rooftop, a comm in his ear and boots treading well-worn ground. A threat from one of his rogues, any one of them, would’ve delayed the inevitable. A call from Dick and he wouldn’t have to do what was required — not tonight. His comm sat in his pocket, silenced. His cell remained off.
Still, he couldn’t make the words come from his mouth.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have chosen Magdalena’s for dinner. They had a dining room to themselves and the staff wouldn’t approach without being called. Candlelight caressed the cut of Clark’s cheekbones, the laughter lines bracketing his lips, and the vee of skin revealed when Clark had apologetically asked to shed his tie — and propriety — after a long day’s work. A single red rose in a crystalline vase evoked thoughts of Shakespeare and tragedies.
“I’d ask what you see when you look out there,” Clark said, gesturing toward the panoramic view. “But I get the feeling you’d say that you’re checking out your own reflection.”
The Bruce Wayne who would’ve intended to end this night well-fucked in his penthouse bed would’ve said, Everywhere I look, all I see is you.
He said, “Do I really come off that egotistical?”
“Sometimes. Yeah.”
Good.
Bruce got to it. “Then it wouldn’t surprise you if I said that this” — them, us, we — “has run its course.”
“Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
Clark’s smile dimmed but didn’t break. “I’m surprised you put up with me for this long.”
“Clark —”
“It’s okay, Bruce. I always figured there was a time limit. What does a lowly reporter from Kansas really have to offer you?”
Everything.
And that, in the end, was the problem.
Clark should have been a single sentence in a case file. One night, at most. A rest stop, not a detour. But the sex had been too good, the conversation too engaging, and the affection — freely given, without expectation — too addictive.
His resolve had eroded one flash of a dimple at a time, one wry quip, one laugh. His intentions had crumbled with the graze of fingertips over scars and no invasive questions following in their wake; shields splintering under lips that silenced his apologies for missed dates and unexplained lapses in communication.
He’d fractured the meticulously constructed rhythm of his days in favor of the domestic and mundane. A deconstruction so gradual — over days, then weeks, then months — that he’d become accustomed to the light.
Clark offered him everything, and, despite his wealth, Bruce had nothing of value to give back. Not when the Bat owned his life.
It was past time to let Clark go.
“Was there something on offer that I didn’t take advantage of?” Bruce asked.
Clark flinched. “I think I should go.”
“Whatever you think is best.”
A linen napkin tossed on the table, the sweep of a jacket off the back of a chair, then footsteps receding.
Bruce breathed evenly. His hand didn’t shake when he reached for his coffee cup. But his heart… The pounding beat thundered in his ears, adrenal glands kicking in. Every nerve in his body screamed to fight, to follow those footsteps and beg Clark to shape him into a man who could be worthy of love. He gritted his teeth and drove back the instinct.
He would not chase what he could not have.
“Damn it, Bruce.”
The hands that grasped his jaw weren’t gentle; the lips that descended on his demanding. He hadn’t caught a whisper of Clark returning, and yet here he was bringing the fight to Bruce — forcing a response.
He unclenched his fingers from Clark’s shirt and pushed back. “If you want one last fuck then all you have to do is ask.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Mm. I’ll take that as a no.”
Clark towered over him, not looming, not a threat, but as if he — suddenly and fully — existed in every molecule of the physical space he occupied. Bruce stood and smoothed his jacket, shielding himself against a battle he could not lose and would not win.
“I know you still want me,” Clark said. It sounded like an accusation. “That you might even…care for me. So why are you doing this?”
Bruce held his ground, and held Clark’s gaze, telegraphing that his silence was the only answer Clark would get.
Coffee dripped from the tablecloth onto the floor, the cup Bruce had been reaching for tipped on its side. The single red rose, Bruce noted, was de-thorned.
“I deserve some kind of explanation, Bruce. At the very least.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You were right before — you should go.”
“I should,” Clark granted, and it caught Bruce off-guard. When they’d fought — in the rare times they’d found themselves at odds on the philosophical, esoteric, or political — Clark hadn’t ceded any territory he’d already claimed. Then, “But that’s not happening.”
“There’s a reason for you — your inability to give up when you’ve already lost. Has anyone told you that’s your biggest character flaw?”
“Pretty much everyone I’ve ever met.”
“Perhaps it’s time to take that feedback to heart.”
“That ‘character flaw’ is what makes me a good investigative journalist, Bruce. You know, my job. What aren’t you telling me?”
The glint in Clark’s eyes couldn’t be attributed to the candlelight anymore; curiosity and determination the spark. Bruce recognized his error — months in the making — then. Clark had grazed fingertips over scars and asked no invasive questions, biding his time as Bruce willingly shed layer after layer, until all that remained was a barrier paper-thin.
He wouldn’t allow Clark to break through.
“There’s nothing more to tell. Bored, wealthy men only want what they can’t have, and once they have it — once they’ve extracted every ounce of profit or pleasure out of it — well…” Bruce shrugged. “You served your purpose.”
“You don’t have to be cruel.”
“It appears as if I do, since you’re still here.”
“So are you, Bruce.”
He was.
He shouldn’t be.
Batman wouldn’t have enmeshed himself in this chaos in the first place; wouldn’t have indulged. The Bruce Wayne of the tabloids, the ones Clark loathed, would’ve flitted off to the helipad already. The Bruce he’d become under Clark’s fingertips didn’t have the strength, will, or conviction to be the one to walk away.
“You still want me,” Clark said. It sounded like a revelation. “You more than care for me. So why —?” A hardening of Clark’s jaw. An ominous pause. “There’s someone else.”
Ah.
An exit ramp he’d dismissed, but wouldn’t hesitate to take now that it had been afforded to him.
The arch of his brow — conceited, entitled, unapologetic — was cruel. The shift that came over Clark’s features, sudden, a pyrrhic victory.
“There is.”
And he wasn’t speaking of the Bat — not exclusively, at least.
For the first time tonight, he wasn’t lying.
Eighty floors below, the alleys of Gotham were shrouded in shadow, beckoning him. Above, the man who knew every story behind Bruce’s scars had likely started his own patrol.
Superman hadn’t factored into his decision; he couldn’t. The Man of Steel existed as a god in this corner of the universe — seemingly all-seeing and all-knowing, a force that could destroy or provide salvation. Shrines had been built in his honor, statues. Hands reached for him when his feet touched the ground, and humanity trembled when he reached back, as if they’d been blessed by the divine.
But Kal…?
Kal was more human than alien; not a god.
Kal had de-thorned the Bat years ago.
“Then why aren’t they here fighting for you?” Clark challenged. “Where have they been for the last few months? You and I spent hours together, days…”
“That’s none of your business.”
“…except the days we didn’t.” The glint had returned. “When you would disappear, you were with them.”
“Him,” Bruce clarified. “Yes.”
“Him,” Clark repeated, nearly a question.
Bruce left it unanswered.
Kal hadn’t factored into his decision either; he couldn’t. The Kal he’d come to know — to trust, to more than care for — existed in a liminal space untethered by the mundanities of daily life and outside the bounds of crises. Breaching that space meant confessions, reveals, apologies, and risking certainty for the impossible.
Bruce’s comm remained silent. His cell, on the table, switched off. The lead-lined case — slim enough to reveal merely the hint of lines in his breast pocket, sturdy enough to withstand a bullet — emanated a warmth against his chest, even though the sliver of kryptonite inside should have been rendered inert.
He held that weapon close as a token of Kal’s trust made manifest, and a reminder of his own vulnerability — that its use ensured mutual destruction.
“For what little it’s worth, Clark, I didn’t intend for this to happen.”
“Yeah,” Clark said on a sigh. “That I believe.”
Candlelight caressed the cut of Clark’s cheekbones, and the furrow between Clark’s brows. The vee of skin revealed when Clark had shed his jacket, tie, and propriety was unblemished, golden.
Bruce had to walk to be the one to walk away, and yet…
His lips found Clark’s warmth, his fingertips Clark’s soft curls. He surrendered to impulse, instinct, and indulgence. To one last kiss with the man he could not have. The case pressed into his chest as he drew Clark closer, a reminder of his mission and the man he would never have.
His fingers were clenched in Clark’s shirt when Clark pushed away. The distance between them could be measured in breaths, not inches.
“I’d ask what you see when you look at me, but it’s always been me — just Clark. Hasn’t it?” Clark’s hand rested over the case, over Bruce’s heart. “You didn’t pay attention to the reflection. To the mirror image that’s right here.”
Bruce’s heartbeat thundered in his ears; his barriers paper-thin.
He confessed, “All I see is you.”
Even when he looked at Kal he’d seen Clark.
His suspicion had piqued one flash of a dimple at a time, one wry quip, one laugh. His uncertainty had been too great to reach for the impossible; hope a weapon of mass destruction.
He allowed that reflection to come into focus, and every apology he’d formulated for missed dates, unexplained lapses in communication, and scars that would continue to accumulate died on his lips, the truth now a known.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?” Clark asked. “There’s no sound in this universe as comforting as your heartbeat.”
The night pressed in, a blanket fit for revealing secrets.
The demands of the Bat fell silent.
“Still want me to go, B?”
Bruce grasped the impossible and held tight.
“Stay.”