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Tangled together in his room, Bruce was starting to doze off in Clark’s loose embrace, draped half on top of the man and thoroughly exhausted from the events of the night. But of course, Clark had questions. And stories. And more questions. Ones that, apparently, couldn’t wait until Bruce was running on more than 3 hours of sleep in the last two days.
“-I think I’ve always been a bit in love with you, you know? But it all came to a head about two years ago, during a clean up after a building collapse in Metropolis, I watched you help that little girl—gosh, she really couldn’t have been older than six, poor thing—out of the rubble, and you—well, I already knew you were good with kids. Hell, you don’t rack up as many as you’ve got without learning a thing or two-“ Jesus, did Clark ever just finish a sentence? “-but you took such good care of her, kept her distracted while finding her parents, I mean—you gave her a lollipop! And it just—I don’t know, it sparked a realisation in me…” Clark kept muttering, mostly to himself at this point, and Bruce found himself zoning out and slowly drifting into sleep, Clark’s voice simply becoming pleasant background noise until-
“What about you?” he asked, his fingers stopping momentarily in their idle tracing of Bruce’s mosaic of scars. Bruce could feel those impossibly blue eyes staring at him, and he lifted his head slightly to meet his gaze.
Bruce blinked once. And then again, realising he had no idea what was being asked of him. He mumbled out a tired “…what about me?” when his brain has managed to connect to his mouth long enough to get the words out and tried not to shy away from the inexplicably adoring look sent his way in response.
“When did you realise you liked me as more than a… coworker? a friend?” He supplied, his fingers resuming their previous task, the man clearly unable to stay still for longer than a few minutes at a time. Bruce would envy his seemingly endless energy if it wasn’t currently standing in the way of his date with at least six hours of consecutive sleep.
Regardless, Bruce deigned to humour him, pretending to take a moment to think about the question, despite already being well acquainted with the memory.
~~
It had been more than a couple of years ago, back in the early days of the League. Batman and Superman had been tasked to investigate a trafficking ring through undercover work. Bruce hadn’t been thrilled at the prospect of leaving Gotham for days on end, but he had built up enough trust in the League by then to leave Gotham in their care for a short period of time, albeit slightly reluctantly.
They had been driving to their hotel for the night, after much pouting from Clark over the arrangement (“B, I could fly us there in seconds!” he had whined, honest to god whined, like he was some petulant teenager rather than the Man of Steel himself. Bruce didn’t budge though, he was not about to tarnish everything he had built as Batman by risking being caught in such an… embarrassing position), and as Bruce had expected, even back then, before they were anywhere near as close as they are now, Clark would not stop talking.
“Seriously, B, where did you get your license, did you get your license? The way you drive is terrifying and I don’t know if I trust this seatbelt to hold me if—heck, when something happens.” He had babbled; Bruce had just scoffed in response.
“Kent, you are effectively invulnerable, unless this car was made of Kryptonite, you would be fine. Besides,” he shrugged, “a little car crash never hurt anyone.” He quipped, not expecting the full bellied squawk of laughter Clark let out in response.
“Did I just catch Bruce ‘I am Vengeance’ Wayne making a joke? My, you really are getting soft in your old age.” he grinned at him, a sight that always caused inexplicable feelings to bubble up in Bruce, but he had long since chosen to ignore. He hadn’t had many friends in his life anyway, that was probably a completely normal feeling to have around them. Looking back, he recognises he likely had known about his hopeless infatuation for the man next to him for a while already but stubbornly refused to name the feeling.
Bruce offered a smirk in response instead of voicing any of the, frankly, mushy feelings that proximity to Clark always arose in him, and they (finally) fell into a comfortable, relaxed silence between them as they drove through the country roads.
That was until Clark stiffened up and suddenly near-screamed at Bruce to stop the car now. Bruce slammed the brakes, panic threatening to bubble up at what could have startled Superman. Was somebody nearby in danger? Were they being followed? But before he could continue down that line of thought, a gust of wind escaped from the car and Clark was sat in a kneeling position on the side of the road, seemingly looking at something.
Bruce got out of the car, beginning to understand this was not, in fact an emergency, and was now getting ready to lecture Clark on the importance of not filling him with a false sense of danger like that, damn it, when he finally took in the scene in front of him.
Clark was looking down with one of the most devastated looks on his face that Bruce had ever seen in the other man. And there in his arms, lay the mangled body of a deer who, upon closer inspection, was still twitching and breathing, although terribly shallowly. It was clearly the result of being hit by another driver on the road and left for dead.
Tearing away his attention from the injured animal, he looked again at Clark, who was babbling near incoherently at it, the deer’s blood getting all over his hands and clothes, but he seemed to either not notice or not care, continuing to just gently pet it, his gaze never leaving the fawn.
Bruce could only watch in awe as Clark, Superman, the strongest man on Earth, cradled the small frame of the fawn so gently he couldn’t help but let something soft pang through him at the sight. He took a step closer to the pair, if only to get away from the centre of the road so he doesn’t get hit next. A twig snapped under his foot and suddenly Clark’s eyes were back on him, his pleading eyes.
“B… Bruce, you have to- to do something,” he cried out, gesturing with his head at the body in his arms, “you have to—I don’t know how to help something like this, but you,” if Bruce didn’t know any better he would think something akin to fondness had slipped into that last word, “you’re smart, B, you can do all the medical stuff, you—you can do something, make it hurt less, right?” his voice broke as his sentence ended and Bruce could only shake his head at him softly.
“There’s nothing I can do, Clark. There’s too much damage done, all we can do is wait for its suffering to end,” he couldn’t help the apologetic tone in his voice. Something in him wanted to tell Clark he was sorry he couldn’t save the animal, if only to ease the despair in his face.
Clark turned his head away from Bruce in response, though not quick enough for Bruce to miss the tears beginning to well up in his eyes as he looked back down at the fawn, its pained movements beginning to slow and falter.
After a length of silence that could have been minutes or hours, the movements from the fawn ceased entirely, its eyes glazing over as it took its last breath. Clark’s sobs became audible then, almost always followed by a broken apology. To the deer? Bruce? The world? He wasn’t even sure Clark himself knew.
In the heavy silence, Bruce was hit by a sudden clarity that the painful clawing feeling in his chest that he had been ignoring for the duration of the scene was not from seeing the injured animal, but from seeing Clark upset, the sight filled him with such wrongness and he hadn’t been able to place why. He wanted to stop Clark from hurting. Despite every wall he had built and air of coldness he had put on for years, he wanted to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay, he wanted to wash his hands and clothes and rid them of all the evidence of this happening so he wouldn’t have to be reminded of anything that made him upset ever again, he wanted to kiss him and-
He wanted to what?
The second the thought appeared in his mind, it slotted into place like the final missing piece of the puzzle that is his love for Clark Kent. He was suddenly aware that he was not going to be able to repress this anymore, now that he had pieced it together and almost let out a surprised laugh over the absurdity of this being the scenario in which he finally realised his feelings.
It wasn’t really all that funny though, because as soon as the full picture became clear, a second thought struck him too. He could not, under any circumstances, let Clark know the nature of his feelings towards him. He found himself almost identifying with the now dead fawn. Clark was good to a fault, if Bruce ever let him know about the depth of his care for him, he wouldn’t be able to break his heart and would get himself get hurt repeatedly by Bruce’s destructive nature. He would inevitably discover Bruce’s doomed and rotten core and not be able to leave for his own good, and Bruce will hold him back and cause nothing but pain to this incredible, good man. He couldn’t let him get closer to him. Hell, he thought, they were far too close for Bruce’s liking already. He was going to destroy him.
He would not let that happen, he wasn’t going to corrupt the world’s symbol of hope.
In the end, the mission hadn’t been at all memorable. But Bruce was never going to forget it. That, he was sure of.
~~
Bruce had, admittedly, gotten a bit lost in the memory. He could afford a few more moments of zoning out though, he thought.
He considered how far he had come from that realisation. Over the years, he had managed to not let emotional fear stop him from forming meaningful relationships and it had all led up to the day prior, when Clark had declared his undying love for Bruce in the heat of a typical post-mission argument where Bruce had thrown himself into Clark’s line of fire… again.
Four years ago, Bruce wouldn’t have even thought of hinting at reciprocation to Clark’s feelings, but god was he glad he had gotten past that. He continued to ponder his evolution through the years for another moment until-
“-ce? Bruce? Sweetheart? Want to let me in on what’s going on in that head of yours, darlin’?” Bruce snapped back to the present day, realising he had been stock still for more than several minutes too long and hadn’t even begun to answer his question.
He opened his mouth to tell Clark something, any part of the story, but eventually landed on, “Five and a half years ago. During an investigation.”
Clark, in all his honest-to-god never ending patience, just smiled, not pushing the topic though it was obvious he was curious, “Always a man of few words,” he said lightly, no malice in his voice, “maybe you’ll tell me the whole thing someday?” he offered.
Bruce simply grunted an affirmative, placing his head back down on Clark’s chest as his fingers moved to drawing shapes on his back rather than tracing his scars. As his eyelids grew heavy with sleep, he silently promised himself to tell Clark everything. One day…
“…Bruce?”
He was about to get the Kryptonite out, “I’m sleeping Clark. Let me sleep.”
“I have another question though,” he could hear the pout in his voice.
Bruce sighed, weighing the cons of just ignoring him and letting sleep take him. Unfortunately, Clark would most definitely wake him back up. “What is it,” he mumbled, too exhausted to attempt to keep it out of his voice.
“What are we?”
What?
“What?”
“I just… we had the confessions in the rain and I’ve—we’ve had a good night together here. But—but we haven’t spoken about labels and I think—I don’t know, what do you think? What are we?” He seemed suddenly full of nervous energy that hadn’t been present at all that night. How was this scarier than anything else that has come before it?
“We’re together, Clark,” Bruce replied simply, unsure where Clark’s confusion came from.
“Well, yeah, and that’s great! But I don’t know what to… call you. Are we boyfriends or-“
“We’re in our thirties, Kal. We have kids. I’m not calling you my boyfriend.”
“Okay…” Clark thought things over for a moment, before seemingly having an idea, “what about… lovers?”
Bruce hummed in consideration, “mm, sounds scandalous. We’ll end up in the tabloids if you go around calling Bruce Wayne your lover.”
That got a laugh out of Clark, “yeah, point taken.”
“We’re together,” Bruce repeated, his exhaustion getting the better of his patience, “We’re partners, always have been.”
Clark hummed, “partners, okay,” he grinned, hand moving up to absentmindedly play with Bruce’s hair, “I like that, partner.”
“You sound like a cowboy. Let me sleep.”
He chuckled, earning himself a sharp jab in the side from jostling Bruce. He let out a small “ouch!” despite them both knowing it didn’t hurt in the slightest, “okay, B, god forbid anyone disrupt your beauty sleep. Goodnight, partner,” he whispered, planting a soft kiss to the top of Bruce’s head.
When Bruce’s breathing started to even out, Clark added on an almost too quiet, “I love you,” into Bruce’s hair.
And if Bruce heard it and squeezed Clark’s bicep three times in response before drifting into a comfortable, dreamless sleep. Well, that was just between them.