romanyg

Wave!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:05:23 GMT

I haven't posted here in forever. To be honest, I have a hard time doing the double journal thing and I've mostly been on LJ. I keep thinking that I'll catch up and yeah, that's not going to happen. *sigh* Guilt!

Water damage! The ceiling in our bedroom and fallen plaster, kitchen pots all along the floor to catch the dripdripdripdrops. Exciting, no? *g*

Fandom makes me sad. *curls into ball*

Um, hi!

Fic: "Once He Had Believed", DCU (Millerverse), Bruce/Clark, Adult

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:45:22 GMT

I've been bad and posting to LJ first. I've been a bit of a one-note jill lately though with the MillerMillerMiller (as in a snark ficlet and a why?Miller,why? review of ASBAR #9) so you haven't been missing much. This angst fic will be my last venture into Millerverse for a while. I think I'm done. Plus, I really need to get back to my Earth-2 hijinks.

Title: Once He Had Believed
Author: Romany
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Bruce/Clark
Rating: Adult, NC-17
Length: 2874 words
Spoilers: set two years prior to DKR
Warnings: slash, angst, possibly dark, no fisticuffs
Disclaimer: Not mine, seriously. All belongs to DC Comics.

Summary: Clark leaves a message. Bruce returns the call. They do this all the time.

Halfway through a small brokers' meeting, Bruce notices the blinking light on his answering machine. He's staring out the window into the side garden, gazebo and rose bushes, pretending to be bored out of habit. Bruce no longer needs to play the addle-brain, but he's tired and the routine of the time before...well, just before, is automatic. The phone didn't ring, all calls forwarded to the machine for the duration of the meeting.

The silent metronome of that red light punctuates the rest of the meeting. A beacon, a warning, a silent alarm.

It's about that time again so he knows what voice he'll hear when he presses play. So when the meeting concludes, he ignores it, choosing instead to go work out in his home gym, all equipment in the west wing and no longer down hidden stairs. He showers.

Late afternoon finds him wandering the hallway, a glass of scotch in hand. He starts early these days, drinks for real and increasing habit. He mostly drinks alone. The light, a distant thing, beckons. The office door ajar.

He presses play, listens. His voice. He drinks his scotch, neat and warm.

"Bruce, hey, it's Clark. Just thought I'd let you know I'll be out of town for a few days, a week at the most."

Of course Clark's going out of town. That's the only time he calls. Every damn time, the same thing.

Twice, Bruce has managed to erase the message, not pick up the phone. This afternoon will not be the third. Clark answers on the second ring. Neither of them bother to say hello.

"What time can you be up?" is all Bruce says.

"I'll be on the 7:15," is all Clark says in return.

Bruce waits by his car in the parking lot of the train station. Clark never flies domestic. It's summer and the Gotham air is soaked in sweat, commuters dashing home to their televisions and dogs. Bruce refuses the melodrama of the platform, the lobby of route maps and vending machines. Clark emerges from the station doors, garment bag slung over his shoulder. He spots Bruce and smiles.

Bruce is already reaching for his keys, Clark almost at the car, when Clark says, tilting his head just so, "Hold on a sec." That second sees only the garment bag on the hood, a whoosh of air, chipped paint on the car. The next second sees Clark picking the bag back up and silently buffing that small spot away, smoothing the dent from the hanger where it fell.

Bruce doesn't ask, but Clark says, "Mugging," anyway in explanation. At the downturn of Bruce's mouth, he says, "No one saw, Bruce."

Bruce only opens the driver's side door, starts the engine before Clark has fastened his seatbelt. No one saw, but he's sure Clark left inadvertent evidence, damage. He's too big not to. One life is nothing against hundreds, thousands. Bruce keeps score. He's been keeping score for years. They pull out of the parking lot.

Anyone else and Bruce would suggest they stop by a bar first. Before, well, just before, Clark would have flustered, ordered a coke, sucked on the cherry before pulling it off the stem. Today, Clark would waltz in right beside Bruce, order a shot of Jack, lean his elbow on the bar. Bruce knows this. Their circles overlap more closely than they used to. Certain elements in Washington won't trust a man that doesn't drink and Clark has always been trustworthy.

They pull into the manor drive. Bruce leaves the keys in the car for Alfred.

"Mister Kent," Alfred says in the entryway. "Your bag." Clark protests, the same old song and dance. Alfred wins and disappears up the stairs, holding the bag aloft.

"Have you eaten?" Bruce says. He always says this.

"I had dinner at the station." Clark always says this too.

There's a plate of home fries warming in the oven. Alfred will bring them into the drawing room later.

Clark stands at the window of said drawing room. "It's always so peaceful here," he says. He's wearing his glasses. His arm braces against the window frame and he leans his head down. They're on the eastern side of the house and so the last few rays of sun, a Michaelangelo effect, illuminate Clark, make him glow more than he already does just by existing.

Bruce doesn't say anything, just watches. He's on his second scotch already.

"Pour me one too," Clark says, not turning, not raising his head. "Please," he adds. Clark still says please and thank you for everything.

Bruce doesn't bother to say, 'Who are you trying to impress, Clark?' That's not what this is about. He goes to the decanter, pours a second glass. He walks over to the window. Clark's free hand takes the glass. He smiles. He looks at Bruce for a second, silent, then two more. "We could start early," he says.

Bruce just shakes his head, walks away. He's not nearly drunk enough yet.

Clark sighs, sips his drink. "Game?" he says, nodding to the chess table. They always do this too. Bruce pulls out a chair, sits. He plays white of course. They no longer draw pawns. Bruce needs the offensive advantage. Clark stopped pretending he couldn't play years ago. Each match requires concentration.

"No clock," Bruce says. Clark only nods, sets his drink on the table.

Four moves in, his gambit, Bruce says, "So where were you this time?"

Clark takes the pawn, but now Bruce has position. "Santa Prisca," he says.

Bruce already knows this. Clark never says where he's going, just where he's been. Three weeks ago, his answer had been Qurac. "I hear it's lovely this time of year," Bruce says.

"It's not." Clark brings out his knight. "We were right outside the capital and..." His voice trails off but picks up again. "They were just kids, Bruce. Couldn't have been more than fourteen."

Bruce moves his bishop, a black diagonal, striking distance. "I'm sure you served your country well," he says.

Not taking the bait, Clark castles. "I wish you'd stop saying that." He picks up his scotch, drinks the whole thing down, looks at the board.

Bruce pulls the bishop back two squares, two possibilities now. "You called me," he says. "You must want to hear it."

"I don't have anyplace else to go," he says. He moves, a defensive attack.

"I'm sure I'm not your first choice." Bruce takes the knight.

Clark looks up from the board. "I wouldn't say that."

Bruce's hand hovers, hesitates. "More fool you, then."

Sighing, the corners of his mouth twitch. "Always. According to you."

They finish the rest of the game in silence. Clark mates him in fifteen moves.

Clark leans against the back of the couch, one leg dangling. "I don't know what you expect me to do," he says.

Bruce is on the last of his third scotch. "Manitoba's pulse crops are up two percent this year, farm boy. And despite what you've always said, you love Paris.

"We've already talked about this," Clark says. "There are at least forty-two extradition treaties that I know of. I'm not about to put a whole country at risk."

Bruce sloshes his drink, gesturing. "Then go sit in your fortress. Wait it out."

"I could, but..." He doesn't finish. Instead, he moves around the couch, sits, polishes off the last of his fries.

Bruce just huffs, and glass now empty, gets his fourth scotch. "What? Your parents aren't getting any younger. You're going to put them in the ground in the next year or so and you know it. Lois is married. Lana too for that matter. Diana made her trip back to paradise. They've got absolutely no one to play hostage with."

Clark twists, both elbows on the couch back, chin resting on his hands. "They do," he says.

Bruce lets the insinuation hang in the air, twist and fall on the ground. He's drunk enough to reply. "Well," he says. "I'm retired. We were never really partners. The media made that one up all on their own. And we're certainly not friends."

Closing his eyes briefly, he says, "They know we're not."

"Problem solved then."

Clark ignores this. "They know we're not friends, Bruce."

Neither of them say anything for a while. Bruce finally sinks into the armchair. "You look tired, Clark. Go to bed."

Clark only nods, rises. At the door, over his shoulder, he says, "You staying up?"

"I have things to do," Bruce says. He's only halfway through the glass.

These things consist of avoiding the library and watching television. Bruce thumbs the remote, finally turning it off. Almost two hours have passed so it's safe to go upstairs. He's drunk.

He goes into the master bedroom, changes into his robe. He will not go out in the hallway. He will go to bed.

He's out in the hallway. The guest room door is ajar, the room beyond dark. He walks down the hall, pauses by the door. One of these nights he will pass by this door, ignore it altogether. That night is not tonight. He stands in the doorway.

Clark is in bed, his bare shoulders visible above the blanket, face turned away. There's a book on the nightstand, his glasses on top of that. Clark shifts, rolls, head against the pillow and eyes wide open. He says nothing. Bruce steps over the threshold, sits on the edge of the bed.

"How long have we been doing this?" he says. A rhetorical question, but Clark answers anyway.

"Fifteen years." A small smile, but his eyes don't light up. "Give or take."

Fifteen years. Farther back than Jason, the subcommittees, back when there had been such a thing as justice. Back when Bruce cared about such things. Back when Bruce cared.

Clark had stood by the monitors in the cave, prattling something about Lois, how she had moved on. He wouldn't shut up. Bruce had turned, determined to make him do so. They ended up with uniforms half undone, on the floor, a fumbled frottage, Clark's eyes wide with shock. Bruce couldn't say that his eyes weren't the same. Clark's cape serving as blanket beneath and Bruce's blanket above. They didn't kiss.

The next time they did. And the time after that.

Bruce now pulls the blanket back slowly, until it's well past Clark's knees. He's completely nude. If Clark still wears those ridiculous pajamas, he never wears them here. Bruce just sits there and looks. He unties the sash on his robe, lets it fall to the floor. He's already erect and Clark is rising. Soon Clark pushes himself up, wraps a hand around Bruce's neck and pulls him down.

Bruce finds Clark's mouth, already grinding against him. They're done speaking, all cues nonverbal, subtle. Clark's hands go back to the headboard when Bruce moves down, takes him in his mouth. Sometimes, that's all there is, just Bruce doing this and Clark returning the favor. And that's enough, more than enough. But tonight, he pulls away. Bruce's hand grips and Clark turns over, hips rising off the bed. He reaches for the nightstand and soon he's driving into Clark, Clark yielding and bucking back, hands grasping the sheets.

He's not a young man anymore and the scotch has taken its toll. He's only good for the once. But he's not a young man anymore so he can last, last long enough to pull Clark up so they're on their knees, last long enough so that he can mouth Clark's neck, grip his hair and turn him for a kiss. Clark moans into it.

And for a minute, two, five, this is all there is—the incredible heat, Clark's mouth, the increasing creak of the bed. Nothing exists beyond this room.

Clark stiffens, grabs the headboard again, and it's over, for both of them, as Bruce grips Clark's shoulders, hands then sliding down to his hips, breath evening out. He pulls away. Clark reaches down, pulls up the blanket. They both end up staring at the ceiling.

In a minute, they'll take turns using the bathroom, clean up. Bruce uses that minute to face Clark, run a hand along his arm. They still don't speak. Clark rises, silent, closes the bathroom door behind him. Bruce should slip down the hall and use his own, but the door is too far away.

It's his turn and he uses the bathroom quickly, runs a glass of water from the tap. He opens the medicine cabinet, finds the near-empty aspirin bottle, empties it by two more. He returns to the bed, puts the water glass on the nightstand.

"One of these days," he says, "that damn door is going to stay open all night."

Clark, head on the pillow, gives him a soft smile. "It's your house."

Bruce starts to say something, but Clark doesn't let him. Instead, Clark leans in, kissing him in earnest. It's late, Bruce is tired and still a bit drunk. He could fall asleep to this. He has before. But just as he's drifting off, Clark pulls back, only slightly, runs a hand through Bruce's hair, thumb along his face.

Yes, Clark, I'm getting old. And you're not.

"You're going to be fifty this year," Bruce says, a tired whisper. They shouldn't remember each other's birthdays, but they do. Bruce is fifty-three and looks it. One of these days, that phone won't ring. And for the sixth time in as many months, he almost asks Clark to move in. For the sixth time in as many months, he doesn't. They'd kill each other within three days.

"What's for breakfast?" Clark says, adjusting so that he's nestled against Bruce's open arm.

"Belgian waffles." Alfred, humming in the kitchen, always makes these when Clark stays over. Bruce will sit at the breakfast table, hungover and irritable, taking only coffee. Clark will leave. Alfred will sigh, quite dramatically, as he clears the dishes, complain obliquely about the empty house. The house, always nearly empty now, will seem emptier.

"I might be able to stretch it until tomorrow afternoon, the day after," Clark says into Bruce's shoulder. Bruce doesn't tell him not to. Of course, it's more about Clark's reluctance toward his destination rather than a reluctance to leave. Duty has become a four letter word.

Wherever they'll be tomorrow afternoon or the next day, at some point, Clark will pause, whisper, "I need to leave." And then he'll be gone. Clark never flies domestic, but he always flies international.

"I can still hear them, Bruce. Everywhere. Sometimes they still say my name." Clark holds on, tight, the words a horrible whisper against his neck.

"Clark," he says, "Stop talking." The words come out harsh. He means them to. If Clark comes here for absolution, consolation, then he's come to the wrong place.

"I have to, Bruce!" Clark had said eight years ago.

"You don't have to do anything, Clark," Bruce had said. He'd walked away then. But he picked up the phone when it rang two months later.

Clark says nothing, falls silent. Bruce moves his hand from Clark's shoulder to his hair, pets it soothingly. Clark's always cried easily, much to Bruce's irritation. Every disaster, atrocity, and Clark would be crying. Sometimes even when he was just happy. Bruce waits for it now, but Clark doesn't. He hasn't seen Clark cry in eight years. Soon, Clark's breathing evens out, asleep.

Bruce leans slightly down, kisses him on the forehead, the kiss one would give a lover, a child. The kiss of death, a promise. For the past two years, he's been accruing small amounts of kryptonite on the black market, having it synthesized. He won't have enough for a lethal dose for another year or two. But when he does, he'll do it here, this room where Clark will be the most trusting, vulnerable. He'll put them both out of their misery. Yes, both, for Clark won't go gently into that good night. He's sure to struggle, take Bruce with him.

For now, the phone will ring and Bruce will answer. For now, they'll sleep in this room.

Clark shifts, throws a sleep heavy arm around him. Bruce stays where he is. This is the longest physical relationship, the most consistent, that Bruce has ever had. He's used to this. He drifts off.

And Bruce is in the cowl again. They're all there, the Justice League. Diana, Hal, Barry, the others. They're in the middle of a fight, but Bruce can't make out the menace. Whatever it is, it's big. He barks out an order, runs. Runs right off the roof of a building. Bruce reaches for his grappling hook. He should make the connection, the final leap, easily. He misses and he falls.

Clark swoops in, grabs him before he hits the ground. He's grinning. "Got you," he says.

Bruce is confused. He sees that grin all the time. It's annoying. He hasn't seen it in eight years. He misses it.

Of course Superman saves the day. Superman always saves the day.

Once, even though he resented it, once...he had believed it too.

Silly!Fic: "The Tragicall Romance of Bruce Wayne", a Bruce/Clark tale

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:23:51 GMT

Only one man has the vision, the sheer strength of will, to push mankind toward a brighter destiny. Yet a vile villain, mistaken as a hero, a false god, nay, verily a craven man and a fool, stands in his way.

And only one man, through the course of years and volumes of fact, dares to tell the truth to the public, so misguided, about this pair, their strife, and our hero's eventual triumph.

A metatextual dialogue on the works of Frank Miller. *g* Completely irreverent.

Act III: The Dark Knight Returns

Clark: *shows up at manor* Bruce, we need to talk...

Bruce: I know, let's go horseback riding!

Clark: Er, I'm not dressed for that.

Bruce: That's all right, I'm sure we can find you something.

Clark: *changes* It doesn't even fit! *struggles to button shirt, fails*

Bruce: *drools* Oh no, it's perfect. I'll get the picnic basket and blanket.

Clark: Blanket? *x-rays basket* Is that Astroglide in there? What?

Bruce: *glares* Shut up. Why do you have to ruin everything by talking?

Bruce: *punches* Years from now, in your most private moments...

Clark: *bleeds* Wait, what? Are you talking private time as in masturbation?

Bruce: *throttles* I want you to remember my hand around your neck...

Clark: *sputters* You are! You want me to jerk off to you!

Bruce: *kicks* I do not! You're just stupid! You sold us out, Clark.

Clark: Ow! Is this about Lois?

Bruce: *throttles again* She's dead to me!

Clark: *sighs* Is that why she's not in the book?

Bruce: *furious* Clark, this is our story, about how I'm the better man...

Clark: *bleeds more, punches back* This is idiotic, Bruce. We could have just done a movie, had coffee after...

Bruce: *more furious* Movie? See, that's why you're an idiot. My parents died in this very alley because of a damn movie!

Clark: *holds up hands* Okay, okay. Dinner then. Maybe a little dancing.

Bruce: *pauses* Dinner? You mean you would've...

Clark: Bruce, your heart...

Bruce: *has heart attack, dies*

Clark: Bruce! *cries*

Act I: Batman: Year One

Bruce: So Alfred, how do you like my costume? *twirls*

Alfred: Wonderful, Master Bruce. Just like our friend in Metropolis.

Bruce: *glares* He's not my friend. I don't even know the man.

Alfred: As you say, sir. But I'm sure the two of you will get on famously.

Bruce: *fumes* We will not. He's an idiot!

Alfred: *sighs* An idiot, if I may dare to remind you, who came up with this idea first?

Bruce: *sputters* He did not! All my years of training, preparing...

Alfred: *sighs again* Which I'm sure he's done as well.

Bruce: No way! He's just an alien with superpowers. I'm the one who's the pinnacle of human achievement.

Alfred: Which is quite dazzling, in a frightening way, sir. But I'm afraid, in the eyes of the public, he'll always be seen as first.

Bruce: *fumes* Go make a sandwich or something. *remembers manners* I'm sorry, Alfred. Please, could you make me a sandwich?

Alfred: As you wish, Master Bruce. *leaves cave*

Bruce: Stupid alien...

Act IV: The Dark Knight Strikes Again

Clark: *distraught, punches way into cave* Bruce, I need you!

Bruce: *crazy* Ha! I knew you'd come one day. I'm ready for you, Clark. Look, I brought friends.

Clark: *almost every superhero in the world takes a shot* OW! WTF?

Bruce: *puts on rock-em sock-em kryptonite gloves, punches repeatedly* This isn't personal, Clark. But am I ever enjoying it. Hee!

Clark: *bleeds everywhere* What do you mean not personal? Are you still ticked about the meadow? I had to leave. Get over it.

Bruce: *enraged, punches* I. Do. Not. Have. A. Hard-on. For. You. This is politics, plain and simple.

Clark: *sighs* Yeah, right. It was bad enough that you had me killing people as a government stooge. Now you have me working for Luthor? Enough's enough, Bruce.

Bruce: *froths at the mouth* I'm the hero! You must be belittled! And constantly abused!

Clark: Yeah, about that, I've been thinking about filing a domestic abuse report.

Bruce: *laughs maniacally* See? You're an idiot. There is no us, Clark. I'm just the better man. I'm a genius! And I am not gay!

Clark: *still bleeding* Then why do you keep doing this to me? It's a little hard to take, this obsession of yours.

Bruce: *leans down and whispers* It's all right, Clark. After this, you get to fly off and have eight pages of inexplicable sex with Diana. Don't say I never did anything for you. At least you get laid. No one else in this book does.

Clark: *flips ahead* That's crazy! Diana? Why? "Mountains shook and the earth moved." What? Where's Lois?

Bruce: *glares* Wonder Woman can have Superman, but Clark Kent belongs to me.

Clark: Aha! You are gay for me, even if I am fugly for no reason now.

Bruce: *wistful sigh* You were beautiful once, weren't you?

Clark: Gay! Although, I do have to say, you were pretty hot, back in the day. Now look at you.

Bruce: *fumes* Get out of my cave!

Act II: All-Star Batman and Robin

Dick: You. Live. In. A. Cave.

Bruce: Go eat a rat!

Dick: Ew! What is wrong with you?

Bruce: I'm a man! The Goddamn Batman! I eat rats for fun. Now, shoo! And go sew up a costume while you're at it. We'll fight crime together. Won't that be neat?

Dick: Why aren't you locked up? You got a Wii in here or something? Ipod?

Bruce: I'm trying to teach you something. How to survive this cold, cruel world. What's wrong with you?

Dick: Can't I just go upstairs? You're Bruce Wayne, aren't you? We're parked right under your house.

Bruce: *amazed* Figured it out? You're a detective, just like me! This is why we're meant to be partners.

Dick: *rolls eyes*

Bruce: Alfred, call that clown in Metropolis. Have him run and fetch the doctor.

Dick: What clown?

Bruce: Shut up. No one important.

Dick: That guy you keep staring at?

Bruce: Oh Kent, you have got the sweetest ass...

Dick: I can't believe you just said that out loud. Ew.

Bruce: *horrified* I did not!

Dick: *shrugs* So you're gay. Big deal. As long as you don't have a thing for kids, I'm cool.

Bruce: *macho poses, with stubble* I just dry-humped Black Canary. In the rain. She wears fishnets. You can't get any cooler or straighter than that. Besides, I screw Catwoman on a regular basis. Who's the man, huh? Who's the man? Say it!

Dick: *snorts* Whatever.

Bruce: *grimaces* Say it!

Dick: *rolls eyes* You're the man. Speaking of, you going to take care of that redhead or what? I think she's bleeding to death. Dude, she needs a hospital.

Bruce: What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? I just put my monkey boy on it.

Dick: Your man-crush? What's he going to do?

Bruce: He's got superpowers! I just blackmailed the crap out of him! I know who he is and he has no clue who I am because I'm a genius and he's an idiot!

Dick: Are you twelve? That's no way to get a blowjob. Try flowers. Besides when he gets here, he'll know who you are.

Bruce: *cackles* No he won't. He's not smart like us, Dick.

Dick: He's Superman, right? *points to roof of cave* All he has to do is look up.

Bruce: Oh crap.

Bruce: *smooshes Superman and Wonder Woman action figures together* I hate men! Kiss me!

Dick: *munches Alfred-made burger* You are so twelve.

Bruce: But it's hot, right? The world's most powerful man and woman. *glares* And completely straight.

Dick: Making your own Superman porn is not straight.

Bruce: *smooshes dolls together again* The lightning, it strikes them both!

Dick: You want his ass, just say it.

Bruce: *throws dolls to cave floor, snarls* Why you little...

Dick: *polishes off burger* There's the closet. Open it.

Bruce: *furious* I'm not gay! You're the one who's gay!

Dick: *laughs* Dude, I'm twelve. How could you possibly know what I am?

Bruce: *hides book under some manila folders* I just do, okay?

Dick: Wait, is that the book? *grabs*

Bruce: Dick, no!

Dick: *flips pages*

Bruce: Goddammit! This is the prequel, we're not supposed to read the end.

Dick: *reads end, eyes wide* Oh Jesus, just kill me now.

Bruce: *growls* Believe me, I thought about it. I was stuck in the car with you for four issues, remember?

Dick: On second thought, when Superman gets here, I'll just go live with him, 'k?

Bruce: *appalled* You can't do that! You're supposed to worship my manliness!

Dick: He has a dog. And a mature relationship.

Bruce: I can get a dog. I like dogs. And that bitch? Like that's ever going to work.

Dick: Jealous much?

Bruce: He's an idiot!

Dick: He's Clark Kent, isn't he? Doesn't he write, you know, words for a living? And have a college degree? By the way, where's yours?

Bruce: *stomps* Mine is from the school of life, you little shit! I've traveled the world, trained with the best...

Dick: You're a dropout, huh?

Bruce: *fists of rage, spittle* Fuck off! I'm better than him! Better!

Dick: *munches a fry* Whatever.

Bruce: *sinister smile* Besides, he's enraged by my very existence. He hates my genius, my mystery, my darkness...Heh. Sunshine hero. Poster boy. What a crock.

Dick: WTF? Are you trying to piss him off? Wait, that's it! You want him to slam you up against a wall and...

Bruce: *eyes glaze over* All that power that no human can withstand. Except me...

Dick: Ha! You take it up the ass.

Bruce: *shakes lust haze* I've never...I'm the Goddamn Batman! I fuck people up, dispense justice. No one touches my ass. I kick ass! All cockroaches beneath my boot. All of them!

Dick: *backs away* You need some serious help.

Bruce: I'm the center of your world.

Dick: Yeesh!

Clark: *arrives with doctor, looks up through roof* Heh, Bruce Wayne. Well, I'll be...

Bruce: You're an imbecile. *drools*

Clark: *baffled* Are you...? You know, I'm seeing someone.

Bruce: *leers* Is that why you go around kissing other women?

Clark: How did...? I have no clue what that was about, honestly.

Bruce: *ominous* I know everything, Kent.

Clark: Look, you're not a bad-looking guy but...

Bruce: *looms* Bad-looking? I'm hot as shit. Bad-ass and hot. I piss you off. I...

Clark: *crosses arms* Need to back away. Now.

Bruce: *looms closer* Make me.

Clark: *sighs* That's not what I'm about.

Bruce: *practically on him* You have no idea what I can do to you, Kent.

Clark: Only my editor calls me that. Look, if you're going to be that way, call me Clark.

Bruce: Clark...

Clark: Er, Bruce? Personal space, please.

Dick: Jesus! Get a room! I'm already scarred for life as it is.

Clark: *backs away, puts hand on Dick's shoulder* Look...Bruce...I'm taking the kid.

Dick: He tried to make me eat rats!

Clark: *appalled* That's child abuse! What's wrong with you?

Dick: That's what I've been saying. Can we go now?

Clark: *grins* Sure, we'll stop by IKEA, get you a bunk bed. How's that sound?

Dick: *rolls eyes* I'm not eight.

Clark: *confused* Oh. That's the other canon. I get them mixed up.

Bruce: *hand flail* See? He's an idiot! What did I tell you? Besides, he's staying with me and that's that.

Clark: I can't do that! I'll call child services.

Bruce: That's the way the story goes.

Clark: Why? It makes no sense.

Bruce: *frightening laugh* It's not supposed to make sense. I pwn everyone and the kid stays with me. You're just supposed to do what I say! Because I'm a genius. And I kick ass. The cool guy always wins.

Clark: You're insane!

Bruce: The world's insane, Clark. A cruel and evil place. Only I can make it work. I'll solve everything.

Clark: *raises eyebrow* Including your little *ahem* problem?

Bruce: Problem? I get laid all the time! Women throw themselves at me! I don't even need to open up the suit that's how virile I am.

Clark: And men?

Bruce: Disgusting perverts! I spit in their face. Evil.

Clark: *puzzled* You're homophobic? But you just came on to me...

Bruce: *blinks* I did not! I merely threatened you. That's not the same thing at all. You're a joke! A cardboard laugh-riot.

Clark: *nods* I've been better written. This is just painful.

Bruce: *hangs head* Jesus, so have I. *looks up* Remember when we were friends?

Clark: *puts hand on Bruce's shoulder* Yeah, good times.

Dick: Can we go now?

Clark: Sure. *leaves with Dick*

Bruce: He'll just be back by the next issue, Clark! Don't waste your...Idiot. *clenches gauntlet* You'll be back, Clark. I've got you now. *collapses in chair, broods*

crosspost warning: LJ, IJ & JF

Fic: "stricken in the arms and mouth of a god", DCU (Millerverse), Bruce/Clark, Adult

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:09:24 GMT

Er, I wrote Millerverse Clark/Bruce. Eep! So yeah, a reaction to DKR and sheer denial of DKSB. ASBAR, don't get me started. *g*

There's just the sun and the sky and him, like he's the only reason it's all here. Then he ruins everything by talking.

This is the text from the full-page panel where, three issues into the mini-series, we see Clark for the first time. I know that Clark is supposed to represent the failed idea of Superman, a failed ideology. But here in a meadow (with butterflies!, horses!), he's the object of Bruce's gaze. And it's quite sad really, because this is the only bright moment, pure joy in the moment, not grim satisfaction or violent drive, that Bruce has the *entire* series. And if I take into account any of Miller's subsequent Batbooks, this is the only moment of honest bliss that Bruce *ever* has. And it's sexual, in a horribly romantic (big R and little r) sense, as all get-out. To him, Clark is utterly beautiful. They're clearly on the Manor grounds or close by. Bruce can come to this exact spot, any time, and yet he can't experience it, fully, *without* Clark. This moment, the way Bruce leers at Clark as he kneels down to stroke his dog to get sensual, tactile gratification, reeks of failed courtship, unrequited and unacknowledged desire.

So the culminating fight scene, to me, gets layered with sexual frustration, the urge to crush the object of desire, as much as it is about the clash of two icons, the hero co-opted by the State and the outside revolutionary. You're finally getting it, Clark. This is the end, for both of us. It's domestic murder-suicide as well as one man's ingenuity being equal to an overwhelming force. It's preconceived rejection, as well as possible self-loathing for having the desire in the first place, turned violent.

And all I can think is, dude, you never even *asked*. Never asked Clark to join you in any sense, politically or personally. Instead Bruce piles deliberate contempt, delights in the beating as inevitable, because he's afraid of the answer. Nobody can make you do anything you don't want to do, Clark, Bruce says in the meadow. Meaning of course, his work with the American government and the threat that Clark might have to bring Bruce in. But there's the echo of 'I can't make you love me' there too. So he manipulates, kicks the snot out of him, because that's what Bruce *can* do.

Also there's the possibility that Bruce may very well be wrong about some things.

And you know, I think Miller would be completely mortified at this reading of his text. *g*

Title: stricken in the arms and mouth of a god
Author: Romany
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Bruce/Clark
Rating: Adult, NC-17
Length: 2611 words
Spoilers: Millerverse for DKR only, takes place one year after DKR
Warnings: slash, violence, Miller's Bruce, not Miller's Clark, dark.ish
Disclaimer: Not mine, seriously. All belongs to DC Comics.

Summary: Clark visits Bruce, years too soon, but Bruce is prepared. At least he thinks he is.

Bruce is used to dreams. He's had nightmares all his life. They change as the times change, as he changes to meet the needs of his city and now the world.

He's back in the meadow, hands on the reins of the horses. Clark turns his face to the sun. This time he doesn't speak, just holds his arm out, beckoning. Bruce steps forward, the dappled light, reins forgotten.

Now they're vaulting up, the earth a distant thing. Clark finally speaks. "Isn't it beautiful?"

It is and it isn't. Dark shapes blot the landscape, the wolf at the sun, blood. "No," he says.

Clark smiles, and then a breath in his ear, wind at his feet. "It can be," he whispers. "Let's change the world, Bruce."

Despair and relief. Finally. Bruce shifts in the gentle iron grip, turns his face to the warm breath...

And he wakes in his subterranean bedroom, utilitarian. He's at war, or at least preparing for it. He hasn't seen the sun in over a year. The sheet stinks of sweat.

Fucking Clark. Always fucking Clark.

The politicians must have telepaths now, empaths, sending him false visions. He's devised empathic shielding but obviously to little effect. He'll double it in the morning. He reaches underneath the sheet and takes care of his erection, fast pumps, thinking only of the world he intends to create, the army he's gathered to enforce it.

But it's the memory of Clark's blood, the heat and smell of it on his hands, that sends him over the edge, into the stark white of bliss.

The silent alarms blink in the cave. His sons, those beautiful boys, in position along the walls to greet the threat. Bruce has been ready, but not as prepared as he should be, years too soon. They had an agreement, a silent one, but still a fragile agreement. Of course the idiot would break it.

"Robin, you know what to do," Bruce hisses. But Robin doesn't answer.

"This yours, Bruce?" Clark Kent says, dangling Robin by the scruff of her costume. He's grinning, of course, dressed in one of his dashing civilian outfits, something to make those perverted old fools in Washington drool, their beautiful god toy.

Robin writhes in his grip, tries to kick loose. "Stop before you break your foot," Bruce grumbles. Pick your battles, girl. Didn't I teach you anything?

The boys, bat-painted faces, slink from the darkened walls, ready to strike. "Don't bother," Bruce says, waving them off.

Clark puts Robin down, pats her on the head patronizingly. She dashes over to Bruce's side. "Sweet kid," he says. "Homeschooling, I hope?"

"You could say that." Bruce puts a protective arm around her, his loyal Carrie. "You're early, Clark."

That infuriating grin only widens, all the dim light of the cave bending toward his gravity, illuminating him, a false beacon of hope in the dark, siren on the rock. "Yes," he says, "I guess I am."

They walk through a secure corridor, nothing truly important behind these steel doors. "Have you been eating right?" Clark asks. He looks the same twenty-eight he always has, reeks of vitality and a hint of cologne.

"Come to check on my health, have you?" Bruce just stops, shakes his head.

Clark stops as well, the insistent curl, that imperfect perfection, hanging just so on that smooth forehead. Of course it's smooth, unlined. He should be carrying the weight of the world on those Atlas shoulders, but the deserter, the failure, doesn't. Bruce does that; he carries them all to a better world, a finer one.

"Bruce, you were dead. Your heart didn't beat for three days. The human body can only take so much oxygen deprivation. The damage--"

Bruce holds up his hand. "Is done, Clark. Obviously, I survived it."

Clark's eyes narrow, and not with concern. "Not really," he says.

"Stop scanning me. Now." His back hurts and his knee aches. Bruce feels every inch of the fifty-six he's supposed to be, but there's strength yet, if only fueled by his will.

"When's the last time you've seen the sun?" Clark folds his arms, Superman. Idiot. Blue-eyed idiot.

"I take my vitamins. I'm not a sun-worshiper like you, Clark."

"Even you need the light, Bruce."

He's had enough of the small talk, useless, and the only thing Clark's good for besides his fists. "Cut the crap, Clark. What do your masters want?"

Clark bridles at that one. "I'm here on my own," he says. "As far as anyone's concerned, you're dead."

Bruce just snorts, opens a door. "Said like the lying loyal dog you are."

Clark grabs his shoulder, spins him around, hint of heat and red in his eye. "When have I ever lied to you?"

"You're nothing but a servant," Bruce says.

He can feel the cool rock against his back as Clark leans in, hands clenched in his jacket. "And you shouldn't be anyone's master."

Bruce shakes himself free. Clark allows it. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your vision of a better world. That's not our job, Bruce. It never has been." Fluorescent glare off those ridiculous glasses, an unnecessary charade now.

Clark couldn't have figured that one out by himself. He only preserves the flawed world order, pushes the stalemate of nuclear power to political ends not his own, the mandate of the few and their prepared bunkers. He's here on a mission no matter what he says. Reconnaissance.

"We can talk in here," Bruce says, indicating the darkened door. They step inside, Clark closing it behind him.

When Clark reaches for the light, Bruce puts his hand in his pocket, cracks the lead foil. Such a small thing and deadly, Luthor's ring, an errant gift of trust from a fool. And Clark looks betrayed, shrinks even before Bruce's now-ringed fist lands in his face.

"You shouldn't have come here, Clark. Anyone with half a brain would know how this ends."

Clark stumbles, falls back on a bed. His voice a raspy thing now. "How does this end, Bruce?"

"The only way it can." Bruce wraps his hands around Clark's neck, straddling, the sweet memory of Clark broken and bloodied merging with the present reality. But Clark's not fighting back, doesn't even struggle, just looks up at Bruce with pained eyes. He whispers something, the words caught in his throat, trapped by Bruce's sure hands.

Gritting his teeth, Bruce leans down, relaxing that choke-hold slightly. "What?"

A hoarse whisper. "It's not rape if I'm willing," he says.

Bruce recoils, releasing that throat altogether. If he had it in him to laugh at anything, he would. "How could you possibly--?"

Clark just closes his eyes, breathes. "Is this your room?"

It is. The blanket and sheet sweat-stained and unchanged. But Bruce hadn't negotiated them here, only the privacy to re-establish order, the way things stand between them.

"Just...just put that away, Bruce. Please."

Bruce pockets the ring, rewraps the foil, knees still gripping Clark's waist. The transformation is slow and no less miraculous. Clark breathes easier, face now smooth and unlined, only a whisper of pain, a shadow lifting. "Thank you," he says, a small smile, an echo of that fabled poster boy grin. Clark takes one hand, reaching, to brush the side of Bruce's face.

And to his horror, Bruce leans into that touch.

Those bastards sent him for this. A gaggle of profilers in some office building must have worked overtime to come up with this terrible and secret deduction. A deduction that Bruce, for all his years of self-contemplation, could never face on his own.

Those bastards, sinister and cowardly bitches, all of them, plucked something startling from the skies, chaining it to the earth and their agenda. His creature of sunlight, diamond and pure. His. That Clark would sully himself, willingly touch the muck, the dirt and the grime...

Bruce's hands tremble, the betrayal deep, his voice cracked and rough, disgust and need. "You're a whore," he says. "Nothing but a goddamned whore."

Clark doesn't say anything, his hand still on Bruce's face.

Bruce reaches down, takes off those glasses, folds them and puts them on the nightstand. He looks into those amazing eyes, glimmers, a smooth surface and blue, implications of something deeper and knowing, but Bruce doesn't dare crack the surface.

"A goddamned beautiful whore," he says, leaning down, juxtaposition, the earth crashing down to meet the sky. Their lips meet and Clark opens his mouth, yielding. "Whore," Bruce whispers again before Clark can suck the breath out of him. He writhes, unable to rein in his disgust, bridle it, nerves singing, hands grasping. Images of this beautiful thing on his knees, on his back, how those fools must have made him practice for this, a steel butterfly pinned to a board, iridescent wings, squeeze his brain, burst from his mouth. "How many?" he spits out. "How many?"

Clark whispers, tongue in his ear, hands stroking his back. "No one, Bruce," he says. "You know that."

Bruce wants to pause, pull back, but he can't. He finds Clark's mouth again, kisses deep. A virginal sacrifice, that's what they offer him. They wouldn't feed him scraps to sway him. No, here's Clark on a silver plate, untouched, so that the only dirt smearing that perfection would be Bruce's own.

And his boys patrol the corridors, Carrie somewhere close, only an unlocked door away.

"They...they can't see me like this," Bruce says, back bowed, forehead on Clark's chest. A plea and broken. Clark's almost recovered from the initial assault, but there's still a pallid tinge to his skin, a sheen of sweat. Strategically ridiculous, relocation an insane thing, he says, "You need sun, Clark."

Suddenly, they're a blur through the corridors, fresh air and blinding, stinging light, whirl around him, Clark grasping his waist and Bruce a clinging thing. Bruce hasn't seen the sun in over a year, his last memory of it this very meadow. Now he's on his hands and knees, desperately trying not to retch into the grass. He pushes the nausea back, the vertigo, and laughs. The sheer power and Clark's only shown him a small portion, no one human could survive the full extent of it.

He falls back, hands on his face and breathes, the desire to touch, to grasp it, hold it for his own, floods in with the oxygen and just as desperate. "Fuck you, Clark," he says. For all of it. For failing him, for making him want this, for dragging his weakness into the light.

Now lying beside him, Clark says, "You can."

Bruce is on him. He might be old and waning, but he still trains, a physical peak, his recovery time and what he can withstand still remarkable. And Clark is golden and gleaming underneath him as Bruce's hands find buttons and belt, zippers. Soon they're nothing but skin, Clark warm and radiating.

Bruce has done this with women before, the mechanics just the same. He should turn Clark over, make him get on his knees, ride him like some magnificent horse. But he doesn't. He only says, soft, "Lift your hips and bring up your knees." He has to see him, the changing expression, as he enters, kiss that mouth, be kissed in return.

They have nothing, of course, to make any of this easy. Not that he can hurt Clark, not this way, at full power and recovered. But it's fitting that this should be difficult for Bruce, almost painful, the breaching, each thrust a hardship. And he is, driving deep and sudden, Clark just as yielding, arms and legs now wrapped around his back and stroking. One of those hands leaves him, a handprint, to stroke himself through this.

Clever, Clark. It's not rape if you're willing. Willing to arch underneath Bruce, earth at his back and filth and Clark shines through it all, gasps as if it's wonderful and passion, return.

"Clark," he says. "Oh, Jesus." He shudders, gives in, sinks.

One last lick to the skin, a stolen kiss, Bruce rolls away, sunlight through the bough. "You're pathetic," he says.

Clark just turns, looks at him, a mess and ravished and yet somehow untouched by any of it, unsullied and still pure. "You shouldn't say such things about yourself." He reaches out, brushes back a strand of Bruce's hair.

Of course, Clark would ruin it all by speaking. And Bruce contributes by responding.

"You're still working for them," he says.

Clark only says, "Yes." A moment passes, a breath and then two. "But Bruce, haven't you read any of my articles, my books?"

He had. All of them, even the underground one, unpublishable, passed from hand to hand, speaking of the beauty of the earth, how the true hero is man himself, the giants only servants. How man has to solve his own problems, how true change can only come from within, not without. All pretty words, vacuous and puerile.

"I'm the socialist," Clark says. "You're the totalitarian."

Bruce rolls into him, a useless fist. "Don't kid yourself, Clark. You sold out. Someone has to be on the outside."

Clark just looks up at him, nonplussed, eyes suddenly deeply intelligent and frightening, no barriers. "Then someone has to be on the inside."

Could he...? No, impossible. We could've had the world, Clark. Two giants astride it, the only ones capable, to make them stop, to make them listen. Your masters perverted you when the only one who should have molded you, gave you purpose, should have been me.

And isn't this what this is about? To get Bruce out into the open, under scrutiny, satellite photos that the monster still exists, the god exposing him?

We could've had the world, Clark. We still can. Fly up, right now, destroy it, their surveillance. Prove it.

Instead, Clark just leans up and kisses him. "Think about it," he says.

Bruce rises, finds his clothes. "Just get the hell out of here, Clark. And don't come back." He dresses, not looking, not daring to, a man can only look into the heart of the sun for so long.

"I'll see you next week," Clark says.

And Bruce has to turn at that, his muscles still aching, an underlying want surpassing will. Clark's fully clothed now, impeccable as always, only a blade of grass in his hair to shatter the illusion. Bruce reaches out, cursing himself for a damn fool, and plucks it away.

"Let me take you back," Clark says, arms outstretched and beckoning.

"I can walk," Bruce says. He knows exactly where he is, the way back, the way it should be.

Clark just smiles. "You've always been stubborn that way." But he doesn't lower his arms.

He's an idiot. But which of them now, Bruce doesn't know, for instead of turning away, walking away, he steps forward, the dappled light of his dreams, his nightmares.

Clark just sighs, relief and tremulous smile, as if he's coaxed a child from a burning building. He scoops Bruce into his arms. They fly up, the earth below. They float.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Clark says.

"No," Bruce says, because that's what he always says.

"It can be." They hover, the landscape far away, only them above it. "Let's change the world, Bruce."

He should wake up now, underground and buried, alone, his growing army a locked door away. He shifts, willing himself to surface, but he doesn't wake.

Finally. Clark shifts too and Bruce loses himself, stricken, in the arms and mouth of a god.

cross-posted to LJ (but minus meta notes)

Fic: "Focus Past the Pain", DCU, Bruce/Clark, Teen

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:09:46 GMT

Okay, I have a zillion other projects I should be working on, but this scan over at wfslash just cracked me up. Superman is injured. It's bothering him, but he's trying to be stoic. Batman notices and says, I kid you not, "Like I taught you. Focus past the pain." Hee! Did Bruce just admit--in public--to his private pain sessions with Clark? My brain skipped off merrily with this. I wanted this to be a short humor piece, but it got a little angsty.

Title: Focus Past the Pain
Author: Romany
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Bruce/Clark, Clark/Lois implied
Rating: Teen, PG-13
Length: 2964 words
Spoilers: set somewhen prior to "52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen #3"
Warnings: slash, violence, angst, odd humor, adultery (with permission)
Disclaimer: Not mine, seriously. All belongs to DC Comics.
A/N: Inspired by Batman's quote to Superman: Like I taught you. Focus past the pain.

Summary: Bruce decides Clark needs a lesson. They both learn something.

"I can't believe you haven't thought of this," Bruce says.

Thought of what? Clark's not a masochist. Not exactly. But there Bruce is on the mats in his cave holding the lead box that's supposed to be for emergencies only. Like when Clark loses it and decides screw humanity and maybe this alien overlord thing isn't such a bad idea after all. But he never does that on his own, all outside influence, and that's only happened once or twice. Okay, maybe three times.

So Clark just stands there and blinks.

Bruce lets out a noise that's something between a grunt and a sigh. "You need to train, prepare, Clark. You have no idea how to handle pain."

"I train," he says, crossing his arms. Already defensive and Bruce hasn't so much as opened the box.

"Not in any real sense," Bruce says.

And yeah, Bruce would say that. Clark has a special set of weights up at the Fortress, but that's just to pass the time. When he has it. And that's the thing. It's all on the job training—holding up bridges, pushing back landslides, changing the course of rivers. He's flown so far past the atmosphere, dangled in space, that his lungs panic. He's still affected by physics, no matter how powerful. He has limits; he's not an infinite being by any means. So yeah, he trains. But for Bruce, who wears all his scars like badges of courage, if it's not combat, it doesn't count. He probably sees him as a glorified construction worker.

So maybe Clark does have something to prove. "Okay," he says, "How do you want to do this?"

"Take off your shirt."

Clark's used to taking the occasional order from Bruce, so he doesn't say, "What?" until half the uniform's off and he's standing there in boots and tights.

Bruce smiles, all teeth, a grimace and so the Bat, despite the fact that he's just standing there barefoot in nothing but black drawstring sweatpants. "If we do this right," he says, "you'll bleed. Do you know how to bleed, Clark? Work your way past the sight of your own blood?"

Clark fights the impulse of self-preservation, to just get the hell out of there, get another shirt at home and leave Bruce with the souvenir. He just raises an eyebrow. "Aren't the mats new?" And he says this with a grin. You know, joke.

Bruce's eyes widen, and he says something that sounds remarkably like 'heh' to Clark. Because God forbid that Bruce actually laugh, especially at the lame things that Clark comes up with. "Well, you'll just have to break them in, won't you?"

"Aren't I lucky?" He moves forward, stands in front of Bruce. He breathes, sets his shoulders. "Let's do it."

The box opens. The first wave of nausea hits him. And then another. Stupid idea. Stupid. It hurts. His knees buckle and it takes everything he has not to fall.

And Bruce hits him. Hard. Right in the face. And keeps on hitting. Gets in a few gut punches and then kicks as Clark curls into a ball on the ground.

"Get up!" he snarls. "Be a goddamn man and get up." He kicks him again.

"Can't," Clark says, managing to rise, hands and knees. "Bruce, I...I'm going to hurl. I mean it."

Bruce crouches, grabs him by the hair, pulls until Clark is looking him in the eye. "Don't you dare. Swallow it back down." And his eyes, they're furious, disappointed. He lets go, shoves him back down. "At least try. Don't waste my time."

Okay, now he's pissed. Clark, wobbly, pulls himself to his knees and then his feet. Bad idea. The nausea's worse up here. The mat, now that was his friend. Nice mat. And look, he did bleed on it. Poor mat.

Bruce, now three feet away, only nods slightly. "Face your fear, Clark. Face your weakness."

Who's he talking to? Clark's faced down the K before. And he's always in the thick of it, rushes in, no matter what the odds are. But this is Bruce so maybe he is holding back, pulling that desperate lunge away. He could hurt him, even now, not control the punch. His fist clenches. "Don't," he says. "You have no idea what I can do."

"Then do it. Don't take time to threaten. You're getting weaker by the minute."

Clark lunges. And misses. Somehow Bruce sidestepped him. On his knees again, he groans, "That's not fair."

"Fair?" And this time, Bruce does laugh. "Your opponent isn't going to play fair, Clark. And neither should you."

Clark's eyes burn and he twists until he's staring at the smoke rising near Bruce's feet. He swipes out his arm, takes Bruce out at the knee. Bruce falls, springs back up.

"Good boy," he says. Like Clark's a dog. And then he kicks him like one until Clark is lying face up on the mat, looking up at some perturbed bats interrupted from their beauty sleep. Another wave of nausea hits him and he has to take a deep breath just to keep from throwing up.

"Focus past the pain, Clark." Bruce may only be inches away or a mile. His voice a distant thing, a tunnel away. "Focus."

Clark breathes. The pain swirls around him. He focuses. At least enough to get some words out.

"I really don't like you right now," he says. Doesn't Bruce have more important things to do than beat the crap out of him? "Do you get off on this?"

Bruce shatters through that tunnel, suddenly on top of him, eyes wild and heartbeat thundering. He grips him by the shoulders, hard, almost gouging. He leans in. "It's not anyone's job to like me," he whispers, teeth gritted. "And it's none of your damn business what I do or do not get off on."

Clark's focused. He focused before he said anything. The pain swirls around him, but he's found the center, free and quiet. He suddenly pushes up, punches, rolls, until he's the one on top of Bruce. "Gotcha," he says, grinning. "I didn't play fair."

Now Bruce is the one bleeding, a trickle of blood from his mouth. That mouth twitches, and a surprised smile flickers. "I didn't think you had it in you," he says. "That's enough for today."

Clark shakes his head in disbelief, laughs. "Today? You mean there's more?" Suddenly aware that he's still kneeling on top of Bruce, he rolls off. "I need...I need to go sit down." He staggers off to the monitors, sits against the cool metal side.

Bruce rises, silent, and closes the box. Clark breathes, closes his eyes for a minute. Only opening them again when Bruce sits beside him, hands him a water bottle. Bruce drinks from his own, runs his hand through his hair.

Taking a sidelong glance, Bruce says, "You can leave the shirt off until the bruising fades."

That's fine by Clark. He's not much with the moving right now anyway. He drinks, closes his eyes again. There's that joke. You know, what's the best thing about hitting yourself on the head with a hammer? It feels great when you stop. And that's how he feels right now, the pain pulling away, the healing. It's a dirty kind of bliss. He sighs, leans into Bruce, who stiffens. Clark keeps on leaning, not caring that Bruce is a sweaty mess. He still smells like shower gel and aftershave underneath all that. Bruce relaxes, puts a tentative arm around him. He shifts so that Clark's face falls into his neck. Clark sighs and stays there.

Clark feels the voice, rough, lips in his hair, hand squeezing his shoulder. "I'm here for you, Clark."

Clark blinks, so close to that neck that his eyelashes flutter across it. The pulse point so close that it would take no effort to reach it at all. Less effort, in fact, than not reaching. His lips brush it, salt and surprise.

"You need to go," Bruce says. But he doesn't release Clark's shoulder. He does lift his chin, arch his neck slightly. Clark runs his mouth and breath along it, an inch, maybe two. Even if he were human, he'd be able to smell Bruce's arousal.

"Clark, you need to go." Bruce's voice more urgent, approaching command.

"I'm fine where I am." And he is. The endorphins, pain-free and flying now, limbs languid and singing, are fine right here. This spot. He mouths Bruce's neck, following the pulse, barely controlled, a reined-in gallop.

"Well, I'm not!" Bruce stands, stalks over to the front side of the station, puts both hands on the desk, back to Clark. The bare taut shoulders an accusation.

Clark brings up his knees, rocks a little, then stands. "Bruce, I'm sor--"

The accusing back speaks. "Superman always saves the day. And Clark Kent does not cheat on his wife. Go home, Clark. Get out of my cave."

Clark doesn't go, doesn't retrieve his shirt. He places the water bottle down on the desk beside the white knuckles of Bruce's hand.

Bruce whirls around. "Fine. Maybe I do get off on it. Will you just go so I can jerk off in peace?"

"Bruce, it's okay." He says this calm, soothing, a gentling down.

"Okay? Did the kryptonite fry your brain? You're married, for God's sake! You, of all people, do not do this." There's anger, yes, but it hasn't strangled the arousal.

Bruce doesn't move as Clark steps forward. He should have mentioned this before. But he hadn't, too embarrassed at being wrong, that it was one-sided, an inappropriate reaction to the tentative friendship, so rare from Bruce to anyone, that he offered Clark. "We've talked about it," he says. "She thinks it's funny. I have permission." He pauses, not for effect, but to admit it. All of it. "If we do."

Bruce laughs, a bark only, rubs a hand on his face. "How could you want this?" he says. "You're rainbows and puppies and everyone adores you. I'm..." His voice trails off, but Clark's known Bruce long enough to finish the rest for him. The real Bruce, not the caricature. The awkward and abrasive one, the one who feels deeply and locks it all away.

Disgusting. Broken. Alone.

"You're not disgusting, Bruce. Nobody pushes me like you do."

"I just got a hard-on from hurting you! I set you up, Clark. There's nothing normal about that."

"That's not what this is about." Part of it, maybe. A certain part of Bruce will always be attached to pain.

Bruce just snorts, daring him to contradict.

"You don't like to see me get hurt. You like to see me get better."

Bingo. Bruce's eyes widen and he looks away. And that's really it. Bruce never allows himself to be tender except when people are hurt. He softens then, opens, only closing when they're strong enough to walk away.

"You died," he says softly. "You weren't strong enough. You need to be strong. Just two more sec--"

"People die, Bruce."

Bruce manages to loom then, glare, all hard edges, any softness falling away. "Not you, you selfish bastard. You had yourself a nice long nap, leaving the rest of us to deal with everything."

"You had a tough year." Secretly, Clark's glad he missed it. He doesn't know if he could bear to see Bruce broken, bound to a bed and then a chair. In pain and helpless, fuming, while others took on the role of the Bat.

"This isn't about me," Bruce says.

"Isn't it?" Clark takes the risk, reaches out, touches the side of Bruce's face. Bruce allows it for a second, then two, but grabs Clark's wrist.

"Don't." That's all he says. He manages to push Clark's hand a few millimeters away, so that only Clark's free electrons can make that leap, touch.

"I did what I had to, Bruce. You can't ask any more of me than that."

"Yes. Yes, I can." He doesn't release his grip. Clark doesn't push or pull away.

"Then ask me something else." Clark leans in slightly, just two inches, his body an unspoken question.

"Were you afraid?"

Bruce's hand is still hard on his wrist. It's not a soft question, a tentative one. The air in the cave is cold, cloying, although that's just an illusion, this moment hovering. He hears the almost silent hum of the ventilation system. Clark feels like he's standing in front of the Sphinx, an impossible riddle. Bruce's eyes give him no answer, no tells. Afraid of what, exactly? Afraid of dying? Afraid of Bruce?

"Yes and no," he says, calm, but a trickle of sweat rolls down his back.

"That's not an answer." Bruce neither stiffens nor relaxes, implacably still. "You can't have it both ways."

"Then don't ask me two questions and pretend they're one," he says. He cheats. The tips of his fingers curl, dip down, trace Bruce's cheek.

Bruce only answers with a shiver that would have been imperceptible to anyone else.

"I mostly felt stupid," he says. "Embarrassed, angry. I fought it, inside. I'd won the battle, but I wasn't ready. Not really. It hurt. I don't know what you want me to say."

Bruce swallows. "I think you do."

Clark sighs, lets his thumb rub that cheekbone, gently. "Yes, I'd do it again. It'll happen again. Someday. That's what we do."

That may not be the answer Bruce wants, but it's the one he gets. And it'll be Bruce too. Tonight, tomorrow, sometime in the not distant enough future. He's not going to slip in the bathtub. There's not enough cosmic irony in this life for that one. He'll be out there and just two seconds too slow. Bam, the bad guys win. There'll be an extra memorial case in the cave with Bruce's suit, Tim standing in front of it and putting on the cowl for the first time. Bruce Wayne will die, but Batman will live on. And some other poor kid with an impossible smile will stumble into the vacuum left by Robin's absence.

One of them will go first. And Clark's died once already so the odds aren't all on Bruce. Clark will be a wreck if he's the one left breathing. He knows that much.

So now to answer the second question. "No," he says.

Bruce's hand must be hurting by now. "Be more specific."

"I'm not afraid of you."

It's the wrong answer and the right one. Bruce lets go, takes Clark's face in both hands. "You should be." A shadow lifts from his eyes and settles again. "We can't do this."

And why not? He's Superman. He eats impossible for breakfast. He leans in and Bruce doesn't stop him. Just a small kiss, but the damage is done. Clark smiles, feels the glow light up his face. He's solar-powered, battery-operated, environmentally friendly even in this dark place.

"Come on," he says, grabbing Bruce's hand to pull him over to the mats.

But Bruce plants his feet. "We need to shower first."

Oh. Right. He still has flecks of blood on his chin and he's probably Stinky McNasty right now. Not letting go of Bruce's hand, he changes direction toward the shower stall by the medical bay.

"No, Clark."

Bruce lets go of his hand, turns his back, heads toward the stairs.

Upstairs. Meaning the master bath and then the master bed. And suddenly, Clark is afraid. Well, not afraid, but he feels that adrenaline surge just the same. He wants to say he doesn't get it. Bruce sleeps around. A lot. But as far as Clark can tell, only Bruce sleeps in that monster of a bed. A handful of discreet guests, maybe, have ever been in it.

Bruce turns at the top of the stairs. "Well," he says, "Come up or get out." He looks angry, but it's not the steady beat of fury that Clark hears, but the faint staccato of fear. He floats up, touches down on the landing without a sound.

"Don't kid yourself, Clark," he says. "You don't do casual."

"But that's all you do." Anything more would interfere with the mission. Gotham comes first for Bruce. It always has. Just as Metropolis, the world, does for Clark. If nothing else, that's what they get about each other. Besides, Clark's a pain in the ass. Bruce wouldn't want him for anything more than a quick release and back to business. That's why this is perfect for Bruce. Perfect for Lois. And if it's not so perfect for Clark, well, he'll just have that leftover impossible from breakfast and keep it to himself.

Bruce just stares at him. "Jesus, are you really that stupid?"

Clark's mouth just opens and closes. Okay, Bruce isn't really a people person. But he's just adding insult to some barely healed injury here. That focus? Yeah, somewhere orbiting Saturn right now.

But Bruce isn't smirking, grimacing, stern, any of his normal expressions. He looks a little bit lost too. He pulls Clark in, kisses him hard, pulls away. "We're not friends, Clark. We haven't been for a while."

What? Oh. He means...Yeah, that word that neither of them is going to say now. Yet. Ever. But all that, just without the sex stuff.

Bruce turns, opens the door to the library. But he stops, breathes, braces his shoulders as if preparing for battle or rejection. Not turning back, he says, "This is cheating, Clark. Live with it or don't."

A million gears spinning in his head, Clark answers in two seconds. "With," he says.

The next second, they're a blur up the stairs.

crosspost warning: LJ & IJ

Fic: "Once He Pursued", part one, DCU, Bruce/Clark and various, Adult

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:51:42 GMT

I've been immersed in fic again. My apologies. I do owe comments. I had meant this to be a fun, frolicky, vintage foursome. Alas, it was not to be. My brain!

Title: Once He Pursued, part 1
Author: Romany
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Bruce/Clark, Bruce/Selina, Clark/Lois, Bruce/Lois, Clark/Selina, Lois/Selina implied
Rating: Adult, NC-17ish
Length: 5838 words
Spoilers: future fic for Golden Age (1958, if that makes any sense)
Warnings: slash, het, angst, melodrama, issues
Disclaimer: Not mine, seriously. All belongs DC Comics.
A/N: Set 1958, Earth-2, after Bruce's retirement as Batman. He's currently Gotham's police commissioner. Clark and Lois are married. Bruce and Selina are married with a baby, Helena.

Summary: Bruce settles down. But life can prove unsettling.

Late afternoon light filtered through the gauze curtains, blinds half-drawn, as Bruce rolled over to the plain nightstand. Opening it, he fumbled for the half-empty pack of post-coital cigarettes, lit one and raised himself to the headboard. He drew up one knee, the blue bedspread pooling away so only the sheet remained.

Clark emerged from the bathroom, towel around his neck and nothing else. He raised an eyebrow as Bruce blew out a smoke ring but didn't say a word. After all, Lois smoked and he had no problem kissing her. And Selina had picked it up again after she weaned the baby.

Before, Bruce would never have considered it. His rigorous training wouldn't allow for it. But the only uniform he wore these days was a dark single-breasted suit and fedora; he could allow himself small indulgences.

He picked up his bourbon glass and swallowed, let the burn work its way down.

"There's some plums in the icebox, Clark," he said. "Go get them, would you?"

Bruce had a view of that glorious backside as Clark disappeared down the hall to the kitchen. Clark returned with a small bowl of plums. Bruce gave him a playful swat as Clark crawled over him to get to his side of the bed. Clark set the bowl between them.

Leaning on one elbow, Clark picked up a plum. "You still call it an icebox, Bruce?" he said, biting down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "We had an icebox until '32 and I've only said refrigerator for years." He smiled, took another bite. "All right, I say fridge."

"We had an icebox," Bruce said, finishing his cigarette, fragile ring in the air, and putting it out in the green glass ashtray beside the lamp. He swallowed some more bourbon, picked up a plum. He bit down, dark and delicious and cold. He almost wished he'd picked up that bottle of sloe gin along with the plums when he pulled his car over to the market earlier on the way to the apartment.

"How could you possibly remember that?" Clark shifted, all long legs and muscle, stretched and settled, plum still in hand. "The well-off switched long before us regular folk did."

"You have to remember, I was born in '15, Clark. I've got a few years on you."

"Only three, old man."

Clearly, from Clark's expression, it was a joke, but Bruce had to fight that rush of resentment that curled in his chest as he looked at Clark languid and beautiful, liquid power, on the rumpled bed. Clark might be forty, but he looked every inch the proverbial twenty-nine. Time and Bruce's body had betrayed him, the small gray hairs on his temple. Distinguished, they said at the cocktail parties, still a handsome devil. Yet below the caterers and the laughter, lay a darkened and dismantled cave, mask and suit locked away.

And here he was, a leader of men, his municipal army, shackled with budgets and reviews, politics, and the crow, that ravager, on his shoulder. Clark would tire of him soon enough, no matter how dogged Bruce's pursuit might be. Once he pursued the violent and wicked, the morally weak, over rooftops, through alleyways. Now he merely chased a cape worn by someone else.

"It's painful," Selina had said one evening, after they'd put the baby to bed, as she poured two martinis, "To watch, Bruce. How you drag him off to every convenient corner when the four of us get together. Work off your infatuation someplace other than here. Make an arrangement, get it out of your system."

She'd been right. So laughable, really, how he'd surreptitiously stare at Clark from the veranda, his drink in hand. "Clark," he'd say, "could I have a word with you?" or "Clark, I need your help with something." And Clark would rise from the lawn, leaving the women, to enter the house only to find himself pushed onto a sofa or a bed, Bruce writhing against him. Clark, who could have ground Bruce to dust and bone if he wanted, always acquiesced, pressed kisses on him in return.

"He's only doing this to please you," Lois had said, packing up her hat boxes so that Bruce could drive her to the station. "God knows why." Clark had already flown off, a tsunami in Malaysia. Bruce had merely taken her rough against the wall in response to that.

"So that's your solution for everything?" she said, a wry smile on her face as she straightened her skirt afterward. "You're so predictable."

Lighting a cigarette, she then said, "You're not going to win this one, Bruce, so stop trying."

"I'm not..."

"He belongs to the world, not to you," she said. "Welcome to the backseat, soldier."

It's not like he'd known that he was, after all, a bit light in the loafers. All his introspection over the years had never turned that aspect of himself anywhere close to the surface. He'd never so much as looked at a man in lust until that one night when, with the four of them, he'd reached out to run his hand over that broad back as Clark neared orgasm. Clark turned slightly, startled, locking eyes with Bruce as they both came, their women around them. That first kiss so hesitant in the afterglow. Experimentation, Bruce told himself, to go with the rest of the sordid arrangement. But that didn't prevent him from reopening the safehouse, a post-war apartment on the outskirts of Gotham, lease still held under a psuedonym, and pressing the key into Clark's palm on the pretense of a handshake.

And Clark had shown up, always mid-week, schedule irregular, to find the larder stocked, bathroom full of sundries, and Bruce waiting in the bedroom.

"Are you a homosexual, Bruce?" Selina asked, waking, as he quietly came in one night.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "I don't know," he said. "You arouse me. That's always been true."

"Are you in love with him?"

He closed his eyes, half-undressed, falling back on the pillow. He'd spent months poring over his volumes of criminal and deviant psychology to answer that very question. And frustrated, had resorted to pulling down poetry books in the shadowed library. He'd shocked himself to find more answers there. It was love. It had to be. Otherwise, how could he do this to Clark? How could he do this to himself?

"Yes," he said, rolling to face her. "I'm sorry."

"Have you told him?"

"No."

She laughed. "Good God, when did Tennessee Williams start writing our lives?"

And he replied, stricken with fondness, affection, "My little cat on a hot tin roof." He pulled the blankets down then, placed a kiss on her thigh as he rolled her nightgown up. Spreading her, he worked up to the fading stretch marks and back down, the taste of her delicious as it had always been. His wife, the mother of his child. He ground his increasing hardness against the bed as she bucked against his mouth.

Three days later, he found himself back at the apartment, waiting for Clark. He'd had the phone turned on months ago, only two people with the number, unlisted, Clark and Selina. He supposed Lois had the number as well. He put the plums from the grocer's bag into a bowl from the cabinet, placed them in the icebox. Taking the bottle of bourbon to the back, he poured himself a glass, took off his coat, placed it in the closet. He undid his tie and waited, only letting out a long breath when he heard the key turn in the lock.

"We should have them up for the weekend," Selina had said, placing Helena on the floor. The baby crawled over to the wastebasket, upended it. Clark had just left, a rare visit. They'd seen each other so rarely since The Batman's retirement. Oh, he'd come for the wedding, the christening, the large social engagements, but little else.

"They're really a lovely couple," she said, leaning down to take a crumpled piece of paper away from Helena's mouth. "Don't you think? We should have some married friends, Bruce. That's what married people do."

"We have more than enough friends," Bruce had said, sipping his highball.

"Real friends, Bruce. Not hangers-on or politicians. People we know, that know us."

And by the weight of her words, Bruce panicked slightly, slopped his drink. "Selina, what are you saying?"

Her lips turned, that dangerous smile of old, the one that had lured him in the first place. "I know who he is, Bruce. Anyone with a keen eye, who's seen the two of you together over the years, could figure it out."

The low growl that should have been packed away with everything else escaped his throat. "If you tell anyone, your hairdresser, your friends at the club, I swear to God, Selina..."

She snorted, looked at him, brave and nonplussed. "Please, give me some credit, why don't you?"

Shame cascaded down his spine, the fist by his side unclenching. "I'll invite them," he said, looking away.

She picked up the baby, wandered over to the French windows. "Good," she said. "Really, in the right light, he's so much more dashing than Gregory Peck. He cuts quite the figure in that gray flannel suit of his."

What kind of weekend, exactly, was she suggesting? "Darling," he said, bemused, "Are you trying to make me jealous?" Perhaps she was. Women were known to wander after they had children, feeling themselves less desirable. "You know how beautiful I think you are. Don't I tell you enough?"

She fiddled with the drapery, looked at him sidelong. Helena, on her hip, laughed in delight. "Lois is beautiful," she said. "The two of you dated once."

He slopped his drink again, set it down upon the desk. "That was a long time ago," he said. "A kiss, maybe two, that's all."

"Really, Bruce. This is me you're talking to."

He walked over to her, placed his hands on her shoulders, gazed into the garden. He sighed. "All right," he said, "I slept with her. But that was during the war. Long before you, before she and Clark..." But not before Lois and Superman, he had to admit to himself. "He doesn't know."

"I'm sure he does," she said, not turning.

"So what is this, my little cat, revenge? Let the past be the past."

"I was thinking of something a little more equitable than that."

His eyes widened, his hands suddenly slack on her shoulders. "Good lord, you're talking about a wife swap. We're...we're not bohemians!" True, he had a colorful past, full of fast cars and loose women. Not all of that had been gossip or the smokescreen for his real work in the shadows. But he'd married in good faith, set all that behind him.

A knee-trembler, they called it. He'd pushed Lois's gown up as they kissed in a lonely hallway, away from the dance floor, the sounds of Tommy Dorsey barely audible. She had a hothouse orchid in her hair. He'd unpinned her foundation garment, worked a breast loose. He'd sucked on the nipple as he pushed in, not even asking permission. Her eyes had widened in surprise.

"I can't possibly be your first," he said, as he thrust, so wet and no resistance.

"God, you're a bastard," she hissed, one leg rising to wrap around his thigh, driving him deeper.

"And you love it," he whispered in her ear. "Does Superman know you're such a minx?"

"He...he's overseas, " she whispered back. She flung her head back as he licked his thumb, found her clitoris. "You son of a bitch," she said, the soft whine of orgasm approaching. "You goddamned son of a bitch."

They'd done the deed a few times after that. Lois always with language that could make a soldier blush. But they'd never made it to an actual bed, and they certainly didn't sleep.

"Selina," he said, "They're fine upstanding people. They'd never go for it."

"Leave that to me," she said, turning, kissing him on the cheek. Helena squirmed and complained. "I'll phone her up, take the train down, do lunch."

"You're wasting your time," he muttered as she left the room with a flounce.

Bruce's hand trembled as he set up the projector. He was a bit drunk, attacked by nerves during dinner. Selina had insisted that he show the blue movies he'd taken from a local pornographer, handing only some of them as evidence to the police after he delivered him trussed up. He'd kept these as a souvenir, something to feed his own perversions.

"We really don't have to do this," he said, finishing off his cigar. "We could just turn in." He glanced over at a tuxedoed Clark on the sofa, Lois in red evening wear side-saddle on his lap. Clark smiled at him nervously.

"Clark's never seen one," Lois said, wine glass dangling from her hand. She ruffled his hair, kissed the top of his head. "Have you, honey?"

"No," he said, blushing. "I have to admit, I'm curious."

Selina placed the needle down on a jazz album over at the stereo cabinet and got the lights.

She sat beside him, hand stroking his thigh. She'd picked the reel. Two couples, a picnic in the woods. Innocent enough until the girls kissed each other over a shared apple and crooked their fingers at the gaping men.

"Young love," Selina whispered. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Bruce raised an eyebrow. The portrayal on the screen amateurish and hardly what he'd call passionate.

"No," she said. "Look."

He turned to find Lois still on Clark's lap on the sofa next to them, the two buried in a deep kiss. Clark's eyes only once or twice flickering to the screen. He had his hand underneath her rucked up dress. And from the movement, Bruce could tell he was fingering her. She broke off the kiss, eyes shut and concentrated, to ride that hand in earnest. Clark looked up at her, adoration and wonder on his face, as the orgasm washed over her. She dove down, hands on both sides of his face, and kissed him.

Bruce stared in frank amazement, unable to look away. Clark would never...but he had, and right in front of him.

Selina giggled. "And they've been married longer than us."

And that scene of domestic bliss which, really, Bruce had no right to witness, had him harder than the film flickering in the foreground. Selina glanced down, the corners of her mouth in a sly smile. "I feel like speaking a little French," she said, slithering down to her knees, opening up his trousers. As she swallowed him down, Bruce risked another glance over.

Lois leaned against Clark, her hand in his hair, leg dangling in contentment, and frankly watching. Clark, lips wet, just stared. He reached over for Lois's hand, which took the hint and freed a very sizeable erection, uncircumcised. She moved her hand, brushing the tip and back down, forming a fist.

Bruce put his hand in Selina's hair, shifted and groaned, but didn't glance down. He couldn't take his eyes off Lois's hand. But then he looked up again at Clark's face. For Clark to see him like this, in the depths of perversity, Bruce should be ashamed, not aroused. Clark and his blue eyes, watching him, no glasses to get in the way of that. In fact, he hadn't worn them all evening, almost Superman in his finery.

"I...I'm going to..." he whispered in warning, suddenly so close. Although Selina never blanched, pulled away, he always warned out of politeness. Judging from Clark's audible breaths, he was close as well.

But Selina, uncharacteristically, pulled away, stood up. Lois, releasing Clark, stood as well. As if planned, choreographed, they passed each other, sliding fingers along the way.

"Well, hello there, sailor," Lois said, standing in front of him. "Come here often?" She reached up to her neck, released the halter clasp, let her gown slide down to the floor. Unhooking her brassiere and girdle, she sank down onto him in only garter belt and stockings. "Old times," she said, moving, arms draping about his neck.

He could only rasp out a startled "But...", certain that Clark would lunge across, throttle the very life out of him. So he glanced over to see Selina divested as well, back draped across the arm of the sofa, and Clark's head between her legs. He sat up as she arched, and in the blink of an eye, Clark completely nude, spread her legs wider and...Jesus Christ. Clark was fucking, fucking his wife, back rippling in careful control. Selina had the gall to roll her head and wink at him before turning her attention back to Clark.

"Eyes to the front, handsome," Lois said, placing a hand firmly underneath his chin and forcibly turning his head. "Are you looking at my husband?"

Was she honestly accusing him of some sort of deviancy? More deviant than this? His mouth opened and he most likely resembled some gasping fish.

"Now that I have your full attention..." She leaned down, kissed him, and rode him for all he was worth.

Selina adjusted her hat, peered in the entryway mirror. "Lois and I are off to Palm Beach for the weekend. Girls only, no boys allowed."

"Were you at least going to leave a note?" Bruce said, arms crossed, leaning in the doorframe leading to the sitting room.

"I told you last week," she said. "You must not have been listening."

"You're not taking the baby," he said. If she did, she might not come back.

"No," she said, looking back, raising her leg and checking a heel. "But she'd be fine if I did. Believe me, Bruce, I've had her for longer periods."

"I do have to work."

She smiled, all teeth. "Among other things. How many times did I put her to bed last week with no help?"

He looked down. "Only once, the way you're thinking. The other times, I've been at the office." And he was telling the truth. Crime stats were up without a certain vigilante roaming the streets to keep them down. The streets were less safe than they'd been three years ago. He'd roared at his captains, pushed for vigilance among his officers, even glared at his desk sergeant. They'd become lazy, depending on help they no longer had. How did Gordon manage all of this with only one ulcer to show for it? He'd even grudgingly asked Clark to do a quick flyover once he'd left the apartment. "These are difficult times," he said, mouth set and grim, "And you go off for a Sapphic holiday."

"Bruce, you promised," she said, voice suddenly soft, understanding more than she should. "You can't. Not with the baby."

"Then take her!"

"You're in no shape to go out there and you know it."

"Christ, woman, I'm only forty-three!"

She strode over to him. "We made a pact," she said. "I paid my debt to society, now you pay yours to me."

Yes, two years she spent in prison. She'd turned herself in at his behest, proving herself in all justice and fairness. "Just one night, Selina. Only one night."

"You think this has been easy for me? Watching those fools parade through our house decked out in a king's ransom while the children and animals of this city go without? Do you, Bruce? I think, 'Just one necklace.' But I don't because I made a promise." She glared, green eyes boring through him.

"You have your charity work," he said, glaring back.

"And it takes a month to raise what I could do in one night. You're not the only one working with a handicap, mister."

He looked down. "I never thought it would be this difficult." He leaned in, kissed her cheek. "You'll be back by Monday?"

She cupped his chin, leaned up and kissed him on the lips. "Yes," she said. "It's not like that for us. We're friends, we have a good time, that's all there is to it."

"But you..."

She smiled. "Of course we will. But it's not the grand affair. You got the better end of the deal on that one. You always do."

He closed his eyes briefly. "I wouldn't say that."

She flung her arms around his neck. "No, of course you wouldn't. You wouldn't be you if you did." A horn blared. "The car's here," she said. She opened the door, turned. "It won't be so bad, Clark might drop by."

"How...?"

She picked up her valise, her makeup bag. "I called him."

"To babysit me, you mean?"

"Someone has to keep an eye on you." She closed the door behind her before he could retort.

They were in the guest room when Helena woke in the middle of the night, wanting her mother. By the time Bruce found his robe, Clark had whizzed by him. He walked into the nursery to find Clark holding Helena on the rocker, singing the mockingbird lullaby. Bruce watched, a shadow in the doorway.

Clark had a way with children. Helena soon quieted, fell back asleep. Clark kept rocking her, a gentle, quiet croon.

Of course, he and Lois couldn't have children, considering. But this tableau forced the question out of Bruce's throat, a whisper. "Why haven't the two of you adopted?"

Clark looked up, a wistful smile on his face. "She doesn't want to," he whispered back.

Bruce nodded. He had done it, well, guardianship at least, and it wasn't easy. It wasn't for everyone. Some women just wanted their own. But Clark couldn't provide that. The epitome of manhood and he couldn't produce children. Not on this planet. He watched as Clark rocked back and forth and something inside him just broke. He knelt quietly beside the rocker, brushed that insistent curl back from Clark's forehead. In a rough whisper, he said, "Would you like me to do it?" He'd fathered a few bastards over the years through his carelessness, had quietly provided for them in one lump sum so that the mothers wouldn't bother him again. But this child wouldn't be a bastard. It would be Clark's and born in marriage.

Clark turned away, rose, and placed Helena back in her crib. He patted her back soothingly as she settled. He kissed his fingertips and placed them on her cheek, tiptoed back into the hall. He left the door ajar.

Bruce stood in the darkened hallway, uncertain. Voice still a whisper, he said, "Clark, if I've offended you..."

Clark looked down, his own voice rough and quiet. "It's not that."

"We look alike," Bruce said. "Enough to be brothers." With the few in the Justice Society who knew Bruce maskless, it had been quite the joke. Dr. Mid-Nite had taken it seriously, pondering the exact nature of convergent evolution. "No one would ever know."

Clark turned, walked into the guest room. Bruce followed. "You don't get it, Bruce," Clark said, voice and face tight. "I already asked her. She said no." He sat on the bed, face in his hands. "She said no."

Bruce sat beside him, placed a hand on his shoulder, awkward. He wanted to kiss him, kiss it all away, but that might not be appropriate.

Clark contained himself enough to speak again. "When she first suggested this, I thought that's what she meant. That's why I agreed." He laughed, quiet and bitter. "I had an ulterior motive. God, Bruce, I'm sorry."

Sorry? What did Clark have to be sorry about? Lois was damn lucky she was down in Palm Beach and not down the hall. Otherwise, Bruce would get up right this minute and choke the life out of her. "I'll burn every damn diaphragm she has and then see what she says."

Clark looked up, shocked. "Bruce! You can't force her."

"I'm not talking about rape here, Clark. Just persuasion."

"Yes," Clark said. "Yes, you are. It's not what she wants. She'd just get rid of it and I wouldn't stop her."

Bruce stood. "She'd just...How the hell do you know that?"

Clark looked up at him baldly, with a hint of accusation. "Because she's already done it."

Bruce felt the wave of shock run through him. "For God's sake, Clark! Why didn't you say anything? We could have talked to her! Hell, if she wouldn't listen to me, she'd listen to Selina. What is wrong with you?"

"It was back in '42. But yes, it was yours."

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face, unable to speak for a moment. "Jesus, Clark. I didn't know. I swear to you, I didn't know."

"I know you didn't. But I did."

"How...how long have you known?"

"Since the benefit. I saw the two of you in the hall."

"You were in Africa! Laying down supply lines!"

"I came back. Obviously at the wrong time." Clark lay back on the bed, stared at the ceiling. "You just took her, Bruce. You didn't even love her. You took her because she was mine."

He wanted to say that it was more complicated than that. But the plain truth was that it wasn't. "Yes," he said, "I did."

"We were supposed to be friends."

Bruce sat beside him, but didn't dare touch. "We were. We are."

"Then why, Bruce? Why?"

"Because you were too damn perfect, and she was there. Is that what you want to hear?"

"No." Clark rolled to the side, to the foot of the bed, curled into himself. "Go away."

Clark would never hit him, not in anger, and that was the only cure for this. Bruce stood, walked to the door. "All right," he said, "I'll sleep in the nursery." He closed the door behind him, leaving Clark a miserable ball on the bed.

Clark knew. Apparently, he'd always known. And Bruce had hurt him in the worst possible way. There was no way in hell now that Clark would ever love him or that he ever did. It was all, what, revenge? To make him look like an old lovesick fool?

Christ, he needed a drink. But he couldn't depend on Clark to get the baby again if she woke, not in his state. Bruce strode down the hall, grabbed a pillow and blanket off the master bed and placed them on the floor of the nursery. Once he guarded a whole city, now he only lay between a lonely baby and a broken man. He looked at the ceiling, the twist of the mobile in the nightlight across it, for a good long while.

He woke, some hours later, to find Clark standing by the crib holding a sobbing Helena, soothing her. "Bruce, didn't you hear her?" he hissed.

Bruce stood. "Just give her to me." He took her, wriggling, and sat in the rocker. He didn't have Clark's touch, but this was his child and he managed to get her back to sleep. He sat back in the rocker, exhausted, rubbing her back against his shoulder. Clark, still by the crib, watched.

When he finally placed her back down, Clark put a hand on his shoulder, whispered, "Bruce, come back to bed."

Silent, he followed Clark across the hall. And when they settled, Bruce noticed that they had the same sides of the bed that they did in the apartment. The bed, a double just like that one, a bit cramped with the two of them. Clark shifted, got the light. He turned, kissed Bruce soft on the lips, ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not perfect. None of us are," he said. "I'm sorry."

And suddenly, Bruce was on him, wakeful and feverish, kissing deep. "Don't you ever say that again," he said, hoarse and urgent. "You have nothing to be sorry about." He worked a hand between them, coaxing an erection from Clark, worked his way down, planting kisses along the way, took him in his mouth. So large, but he'd become adept at it, an excellent French speaker. He took himself in hand, made a mess on the bed as Clark came in his mouth.

Such a small thing to give. Too small.

"I had lunch with Evans from the Gazette today," Bruce said to Selina one night over dinner. Helena chewed a teething ring on the highchair next to them.

She glanced up from her soup. "Really? What for?"

"It seems he's stepping down as editor this year. Can you imagine?"

She put her spoon down with a clank, tapped her foot once, twice beneath the table. "And I suppose you just happened to have a suggestion for his replacement?"

Bruce continued eating, eyed her. "He'd be perfect for the job."

Helena threw the ring on the floor, laughed. "Just say it, Bruce. You mean both jobs."

"Metropolis already has the Lantern. What the hell does it need Superman for? Dick's still in New York. Gotham has no one."

"It still has you."

"Not in the way that counts."

"This isn't his city and you know it."

"It can be. He can commute back if he has to. It shouldn't be too difficult for him."

Alfred came in with the game hens then. He served them with only a few polite words. He'd always been the picture of discretion, never offering an opinion on this whole sordid mess he'd been forced to witness. Bruce was sure he had them.

Selina politely thanked him before he retreated into the kitchen, the safety of his tea. She cut up bits of her bird, placed them on the tray of the highchair. Helena gurgled and mouthed her bits happily.

"And where would he live exactly?" she said.

"Here, of course."

She let out a small, disbelieving laugh. "Bruce, you plan to move your mistress into our house? You're insane!"

A small kernel of anger blossomed inside him. He flung his napkin on the table, pushed his chair back. "Don't you ever talk about him that way." His voice a quiet, deadly thing.

"What kind of pedestal do you have him on?" she said. "He snores and stinks up the bathroom just like the rest of us."

"Don't be crude." He rose, paced over to the fireplace, drummed his fingers on the mantle. "Gotham needs a protector."

She reached over, placed her hands over Helena's ears. "How convenient that you happen to be fucking your candidate. Did you plan on luring him with sex? You think you're that good?"

His fingers stilled, gripped the mantle. "I'm better than her," he gritted out. "She doesn't even go down on him."

She gasped. "Now who's crude?" She covered up Helena's ears again. "Not everyone loves it like you do, you jealous faggot."

He merely shook his head, laughed. "Maybe I am. But I'm hardly effeminate, neither is he." He wandered over to the drink stand, poured himself a scotch, took a sip. "Besides, you like it well enough, and I married you."

She unclasped the tray, picked up the baby, stood. "I don't need to listen to this. Do you even like women, Bruce?"

"I do. I just don't like her."

She walked over to him, Helena on her hip. "Why? Besides the obvious."

He took another sip, eyed her over the glass, whispered, "I have my reasons."

"Well, I suggest you reason those away. He loves her. And if you somehow manage to strong-arm him into moving, he'll take her with him. He won't leave her, Bruce. Not for you, not for anyone."

He lowered his glass, voice suddenly tight and soft. He looked at her, pleading. "You don't understand, Selina. She's hurting him."

"Oh," she said. She placed Helena on the floor, watched her pull herself up by the arm of a chair. Her voice softened too. "And you're not? I think I know what this is about now. Come on, let's sit." She took his arm, led him over to the sofa. Helena crawled over to the coffee table, pulled herself up again, worked her way around.

"Some things just aren't meant to be, Bruce. Leave it alone."

He swirled his drink. "She's talked to you about this?"

"Yes, she has." She leaned over, caressed his arm. "She's thirty-eight years old, Bruce. It's a little late for her to start. I don't think he gets that."

"That's just an excuse. Plenty of women older than she is have babies."

"I know about the abortion, Bruce. You think that doesn't affect her chances now?"

He leaned back against the sofa, closed his eyes briefly. "I just found out about that," he said. "I would have done the right thing then if I'd known."

"How? By throwing a fistful of money at it like you did the others?"

He sighed. "You know entirely too much about me." No, he wouldn't have married her, wouldn't have given it any sort of consideration. It would have compromised the mission. Besides, he laughingly called her Mrs. Superman even then. "He would have though, given the chance."

"And what was she supposed to say? 'Hey, Superman, guess what? I two-timed you with your best friend and now I'm knocked up. Want to get hitched?'"

He polished off his scotch, not bothering to correct her that Lois hadn't known then that Bruce wore the mask, that Bruce and Clark were merely acquaintances and that only Batman had befriended Superman. "She could have asked Clark."

"With that milquetoast act he had to fool her? Not in a million years. She felt entirely on her own."

Playing with the empty glass, he looked over at her. "So you're saying she considered keeping it."

"You've seen what those places are like, Bruce. That's not an easy decision for anyone."

And indeed he had. Butcher shops, mostly. Filthy and preying on frightened women. He'd found the occasional good samaritan in his years as the Bat, but far fewer than the monsters. And she'd gone to one of those places, alone. Clark couldn't have known until afterward, that she'd made that decision.

She still had her hand on his arm. "Hate her now?" she said.

"No," he whispered. "I need another drink."

Selina patted him on the arm, took his glass, refilled it.

He downed it in two gulps. "He'll never forgive me," he said. "I don't understand why he..."

"Yes," she said, interrupting. She reached over to him, cupped his cheek, face full of affection. "What could anyone possibly see in you, you charming bastard?"

Helena let go of the coffee table, took an uncertain step, then two, and walked for the first time.

crosspost warning: LJ & IJ

Rule 34 doesn't always work with OT4s. Prove me wrong!

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:09:22 GMT

Just so you know, I really want to read Earth-2 Lois/Clark/Bruce/Selina circa 1958, post Bruce's retirement as Batman. You know, dinner at the manor, with Dior cocktail dresses and a film projector showing blue movies. Highballs and Brandy Alexanders. An afternoon by the pool with wide-brimmed hats and strappy high-heeled sandals and white-frame sunglasses and Singapore Slings. High fidelity stereo cabinets and jazz. Cold War arguments and Bettie Page bondage boots. Pomade and hair spray. Cocktail rings and tuxedo braces. Mimosas in the morning, even Clark trying one. Helena in a highchair at the kitchen breakfast table. Faded stretch marks. Flecks of gray on Bruce's temple as he smokes a Cuban cigar.

Fandom, where is this story? I invoke Rule 34 (if it exists, there is porn for it). *looks up Rule 34* Oh, if I get too specific, that means *I* have to write it.

Darn.

crosspost: LJ, IJ & JF

GIP, Happy New Year! and Fic Round-Up.

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:26:30 GMT

This is probably not the best icon to ring in the new year with, but it fills me with glee! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! See? Look at all my glee!

Right now, I have a feverish Romanita and a bored, healthy one. *sigh* I'd hoped to catch up on all the wonderful holiday postings (such as yuletide and the various exchanges), but not today. But....

Happy 2008, everyone!

Thank you, tmelange, for the virtual noisemaker on my info page! Speaking of her, she's been working like crazy to get a holiday Bruce/Clark fanzine up. What I've seen so far looks great! She's making a post, various contributors for fic and art, each day over at wfslash (LJ).

So in 2007, I wrote some stuff...

January

The Merest Whim, SV, Clark/Lex, G, 834 words, 01/09/07
Just a Hint of Dirt, RPS, TW/MR, NC-17, 1702 words, 01/10/07
Different Day, AtS, Angelus/Lindsey, PG-13, 815 words, 01/14/07
Of Chess and Cookie Jars, Very Important Things, SV, Clark/Lex, NC-17, 2230 words, 01/24/07

February

Détente, part 1, SV, Lana/Chloe/Clark/Lex, NC-17, ~2,000 - 3,000 words, 02/13/07
Dead Air, AtS, Spike/Angel, PG-13, 300 words, 02/15/07

March

For Him Alone, SV, Clark/Lex, R, 565 words, 03/27/07

April

Most Definitely His, SV, Clark/Lex, NC-17, 3029 words, 04/02/07
Détente, part 2, SV, Lana/Chloe/Clark/Lex, NC-17, 1059 words, 04/19/07
Detente, part 3,, SV, Lana/Chloe/Clark/Lex, NC-17, 1232 words, 04/20/07 - WIP, but not abandoned
World Without, SV/DCU, Clark/Lex, Clark/Bruce, PG-13, 2253 words, 04/24/07
Fool Me Once, SV/DCU, Clark/Lex (Clark/Bruce, Clark/Lois implied), R, 3332 words, 04/30/07

May

A Straight Line and Clarity, SV, Clark/Lex, R/NC-17, 1607 words, 05/17/07

June

The Main Difference and None at All, SV/DCU, Bruce/Clark/Lex, NC-17, 6138 words, 06/05/07
Time and Territory, SV/DCU, Bruce/Clark, Clark/Lex, NC-17, 2351 words, 06/11/07 - WIP, not abandoned
The Time Before, part 1, SV/DCU, Bruce/Lex, Bruce/Harvey, R, 3033 words, 06/13/07
The Time Before, part 2, SV/DCU, Bruce/Lex, Bruce/Harvey, R, 3329 words, 06/15/07
The Time Before, part 3, SV/DCU, Bruce/Lex, Bruce/Harvey, R, 2247 words, 06/18/07
The Time Before, part 4, SV/DCU, Bruce/Lex, Bruce/Harvey, R, 2865 words, 06/20/07
The Time Before, part 5, SV/DCU, Bruce/Lex, Bruce/Harvey, R, 4347 words, 06/22/07 - WIP, not abandoned

July

Beer and Mistletoe, SV, Clark/Lex, R, ? words, 07/01/07 - WIP, abandoned
Somewhere Between, part 1, SV/DCU, Clark/Dick, PG-13, ~2000 words, 07/10/07
Three Things Clark Will Never Tell Anyone, SV, Clark/various, R, 1672 words, 07/11/07
Creature of Subtlety and Grace, AtS, Connor, R, ? words, 07/16/07
This Lie, SV/DCU, Clark/Lex, NC-17, 888 words, 07/18/07

October

Peripheral Vision, SV/DCU, Bruce/Clark, PG-13, 1721 words, 10/10/07
the edges finely shaped and honed, SV/DCU, Bruce/Lex, NC-17, 2969 words, 10/17/07
Somewhere Between, part 2, SV/DCU, Clark/Dick, NC-17, 2543 words, 10/20/07
Somewhere Between, part 3, SV/DCU, Clark/Dick, Bruce/Clark, R/NC-17, 1518 words, 10/21/07
Somewhere Between, part 4, SV/DCU, Clark/Dick, R, 1025 words, 10/23/07

November

So there's this guy..., SV, Clark/Brian (young tech guy), NC-17, 1841 words, 11/02/07
Bring This Room, SV, Clark/Lex, G, 500 words, 11/07/07
A Necessary Distance, DCU, Bruce/Clark, R/NC-17, 1346 words, 11/13/07
Say It Like You Mean It, DCU, Clark/Lois, NC-17, 2661 words, 11/27/07

December

Take the Ride, SV/DCU, (Bruce/Clark), Tim/Kon/Bart, R, ? words, 12/03/07 excerpt from unposted fic
In The Details, DCU, Bruce/Clark, batfamily, PG-13, 3063 words, 12/13/07
Pillow Talk, DCU, Bruce/Clark, PG-13/R, 2947 words, 12/18/07

All the links are to LJ. My apologies. I didn't start crossposting until the summer.

Wow! 37 fic posts?!? I think that's a record for me. And I thought this Bruce obsession a bit more recent, but he's mentioned as a Clark-contender in the first fic of 2007. I guess he's been creeping into my fic for a while, sneaky bat. *g*

crosspost warning: LJ, IJ and JF

There's a button right over there, just push it.

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:24:10 GMT

Over at comicvine, they have this neat little set-up (and yes, I am *such* a GEEK!) where you can have various comic characters mock-battle each other based on certain superpowers - such as "If 'X' could only use the power of flight against 'Y', who would win?"

One of these superpowers? Attractive Male. Yes, you get to pick who would OUT-HOT the other. GLEE!

Currently at #1 - Nightwing.

Currently at #2 - Batman.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *wipes away perfect tear*

They both have Bat-Factor, you see. And I'm just imagining Bruce drumming his gauntlets by the monitor, because he has to check out *every* website with a Batman reference, that paranoid man, and just feeling like an AGING LION. And he would say NOTHING because of PRIDE.

Poor Clark is at #10, but he's never been a man-about-town, so there's that.

Of course the "battle-stats" are a lot higher for Attractive Female, but I can't help but think of those fanboys sitting there hitting the "battle" button. You know, Batman vs. Whomever, grinning at "flight" (okay, that's a no), "intellect" (probably Batguy), and then blinking at "attractive male". The sweat! And er, okay, maybe Batman's HOTTER than Whomever. And they push the button. They PUSH it! GLEE!

And they tell me to SHUT UP! It's an AESTHETIC THING and it's CANON that he's HOT so SHUT UP! I would not DO Batman!

*is twelve*

ETA: For my Jossverse friends because we have the comics too: #16 - ANGEL, #23 - SPIKE, #73 - RILEY. Unfortunately, not a single one of the Jossverse women are on the top 100 Attractive Female list.

crosspost warning: LJ, IJ, GJ

Fic: In the Details [scenarios, vignettes], DCU, Clark/Bruce, Teen

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:32:03 GMT

Title: In the Details - scenarios and vignettes
Author: Romany
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Clark/Bruce, Clark/Lois, Bruce/Selina implied
Rating: Teen, PG-13
Length: 3063 words
Spoilers: only semi-recent, continuity? what continuity?
Warnings: slash, het, angst
Disclaimer: Not mine, seriously. All belongs to DC Comics.

Summary: Clark insists on labels. Bruce deals in scenarios.

Sometimes he thinks the best thing he ever did was to push Dick away. Dick’s a survivor, and he must have known that even then. He had places to go, people to turn to. One of them being Clark.

He resents that even now.

He can’t say that he understands Dick. Dick isn’t him and never will be.

He’s never been more disappointed in anyone or more proud.

Bruce understands Tim more. This scares him as few things do.

Bruce despises the word if. It implies regret and wishfulness. If only belongs in logical formulae, conclusions and outcome, the anticipation of an opponent’s move. The narrowing of possibility, not the broadening of it.

Clark demands labels, terms of relationship. Bruce offers ‘strategic ally’. Clark counters with ‘friend’ and ‘brother’. Neither of them understand ‘fraternal’ although it’s on the table, both of them only children. The term only loosely applies, like one of Clark’s carefully rumpled suits or wrinkled t-shirts.

Clark is like a dog scratching at the door, insisting to be let in. Not understanding that he has been put out.

Bruce has little use for telepaths. Few dare to breach his mind. And whatever they find there, they deserve.

As much as Brucie is a caricature, he’s a part of who he might have been. He despises him and envies him.

He’s been accused of asexuality and over-eroticism. He’s guilty of both. The mission makes sure of that.

The mission keeps him from becoming an alcoholic. He’s developed a tolerance for many poisons, alcohol being one of them. Brucie has to drink for appearances. Bruce drinks alone. Occasionally, it helps him sleep.

He goes years, at times, without truly touching anyone. Months without taking a hand to himself. He has nightmares and nocturnal emissions, his body allying with his mind to betray him.

Until he meets Clark, he thinks that no one has the same force of will as he does. Clark doesn’t. He’s merely stubborn and willful, believing outrageous and laughable things. There are times when he tells Clark exactly this at the top of his lungs. Clark just smiles and does whatever he wants anyway, completely unreasonable.

Clark is an arrogant bastard.

Diana calls him Kal, but Bruce hasn’t called him anything but Clark for years. At least when they’re alone. He’s alone with Clark entirely too much, Clark having the mistaken impression that Bruce prefers his company.

Once, he refuses to answer to Clark and refuses to call him Bruce. Even after Bruce unmasks. And then Kal leaves. Bruce stands on that rooftop for half an hour, exposed, insisting to no one that his name is, indeed, Bruce.

Clark apologizes too much. Even for dying. Now that one, he should apologize for.

Years later, on a mission, he tells Clark that Superman is the true being, Clark just the construct. Of course, he calls him Clark the entire time he says this. Clark only shakes his head, smiling, continuing to work, unbelieving. Then again, Bruce doesn’t believe it either.

Bruce enjoys telling Clark to go away.

Bruce has an infrequent but recurring dream. He and Clark are sitting on a driftwood log on Madaket Beach which is somehow deserted save for a small boy flying a red kite in the distance. Thomas and Martha Wayne are resting back at the summer house, within walking distance. There are no such people as Batman or Superman. They watch the sunset. Then Clark walks over to Bruce’s seven-year old self, helps him reel in the kite. He stoops and laughs, picks up the boy and places him on his shoulders, walks back to the house. Bruce follows.

As far as nightmares go—discounting those of death and dismemberment—it’s one of the worst.

Clark talks incessantly, giving details of his life, confidences. He expects them in return. A parlay, a trade, an exchange of information. He owes Clark nothing. And yet the words fall graceless from his mouth, pitiful details. It is fumbling, tantric conversation. He’s certain that Clark sees nothing erotic about it at all.

For someone deemed perfect, Clark has a number of physical imperfections: the insistent curl on his forehead, the slight indentation on his lower lip from when he bites it in worry, the jagged edge of his left thumbnail from where he chews it. He often catches the nail near Clark’s mouth when his face is intent on a computer screen, absorbing information. Bruce remarks on this and Clark startles, smiles shyly, has the audacity to blush, lowers his hand.

Bruce has never seen anything more frustratingly alluring than that damn jagged nail.

At the funeral, Bruce forces himself to view the body. The hair is combed back, curl gone. The lips are smooth. But the toothmark is on the nail.

It’s really Clark. Bruce turns away.

Bruce would kill for Clark. He knows this. In other times, in other worlds, he already has.

He should kill for Jason. For Barbara. Someday he will.

Clark is family. He does not live in Bruce’s house, not even in his city. Clark has a life elsewhere.

If any one of them deserves that fairytale ending, it’s Clark. In Bruce’s life, there is no ‘after’ and there certainly is no ‘happily’. He attends the wedding, dances with the bride. He hands Clark the keys to his apartment, a gift. He has plans to purchase the Daily Planet. He will keep Clark safe as much as he can, even from himself.

Bruce grinds his teeth every time he hears Clark say: Bruce, I need you.

Clark has violated him, taken some of his pain into himself. Pain informs him, makes him who he is. It doesn’t matter that it made him insane. It doesn’t matter that he would have done the same, if the situation were reversed. It’s his pain and Clark wears it.

And yet Bruce forgives him. Clark is the creature of forgiveness, not himself. He is a creature of vengeance and justice.

Perhaps he wears a part of Clark within himself now, as well. If he does, it is not an even trade.

As anyone, Bruce has demarcations in his life, a series of befores and afters. There is only one that defines him. Nothing will change that.

He hears rumors of his sexual prowess, proclivities, in all guises. Only some of these are true.

He has no reason to spy on Clark’s private moments. Even he doubts that Clark and Lois whisper intrigue against him in the dark. He doesn’t watch, but he doesn’t remove the camera. The system will flag him if his name is mentioned.

One morning, he phones Clark at The Planet, asks him to take the rest of the day off. They walk the five blocks from Wayne Tower to Robinson Park, Bruce not saying a word. They eat hot dogs by the duck pond. Clark insists on buying a balloon and gives it to Bruce to release on a pedestrian bridge over the Finger River. "Tradition," he says, "you have to make a wish." The balloon, of course, gets stuck in a tree upriver and pops.

They spend another two hours in the park. Clark eventually rolls down a grassy hill to skid spread eagle at the bottom. He does this repeatedly before he says, “Well?”

“You,” Bruce says, “are a child.” He sheds his coat in a huff and rolls, landing on top of Clark, who laughs and then quiets.

“You should have been,” Clark says, underneath him.

Clark’s glasses are several feet away. His eyes are blue.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Clark?” Bruce whispers. He stands, retrieves his coat, and walks away.

Four hours later, he’s out on patrol. His timing’s off and he ends up with a small slash on his bicep before he can disarm a simple mugger with a jackknife.

One day, he’s in New York with Bridgette McCall. She wants to stop at Tiffany’s, hinting that she needs new earrings for the Mayor’s benefit that night, which they’re both attending.

Bruce wanders down the display cases as she’s busy deciding with the saleswoman, tapping his Black Card as he goes. He stops at the tie pins.

“You have good taste, sir,” the manager says from behind the counter. “Would you like me to get it out for you?”

His eyes, of course, had stopped at a simple diamond set in platinum. Bruce nods, listens to the details as he holds it in his palm.

“It’s a gift,” he says, “Could you send it to this address?”

But his hand hovers over the plain linen card, at a loss for a single word.

“On second thought,” he says, “I’ll take it with me.”

Bridgette adores her new earrings. Even after Bruce disappears that evening, leaving her with the other hostages for Batman to handle. Bruce is known to only think of himself, notorious for saving his own skin.

The tie pin remains in its blue box, note unwritten, in the upper left hand drawer of his desk in his study back at the manor.

Clark is the second most terrifying sight he’s ever seen. On a planet with three moons, in a star system astronomers have yet to name, Bruce watches as he decimates an entire robot army. Floating in the air, beams from his eyes.

Bruce has fought against men, aliens, gods. And none of them are quite like Clark.

“You were slow,” he says, as they return to the ship. “They could have easily flanked you on your left. Next time, anticipate.”

Clark only nods, heads for the shower.

It is six years and four months before he takes a hand to himself in the name of Clark Kent. He makes it quick. He’s a weak man.

“You’re hard on him,” Diana says. “Both of you have leadership qualities we need.”

“I only tell him the truth,” Bruce says. “He needs to hear it from someone.”

“Would it kill you to give him a compliment?”

“People give him compliments all the time. I hardly need to bolster his confidence.”

“He respects you.”

“Well, that’s his problem then, not mine.”

Three days after meeting Clark, he sleeps with Lois. It’s a petty thing to do, really, but he doesn’t like the man. He has room service bring in strawberries in the morning and he doesn’t call her again.

She has to have told him, but Clark never mentions it.

There is laughter in the house. Dick has come down from Bludhaven. He and Clark sit on the couch, popcorn bowl between them. Tim is on the floor. They’re watching a comedy, rude and brash, low humor.

Sometimes, Clark snorts when he laughs.

“Keep it down,” he says from the door, paper in hand.

Dick turns and smiles, arm resting on the back of the couch, fingertips glancing Clark’s shoulder.

Bruce’s eyes narrow. He’s never understood the relationship they have. Coffee shops and diners. Camping trips to the Adirondacks.

“Sure thing,” Dick says, turning away, aiming the remote and lowering the volume.

Bruce is getting old. He relies on stimulants more. Caffeine mostly, sometimes epinephrine. In the mirror, he can see the fine lines around his eyes. They’re not from laughter.

Someone soon will have their lucky day. He needs to talk to Tim, make arrangements.

One day, in the cave, Clark looks at him from the adjacent chair. “You need to sleep more,” he says.

“Plenty of time for that when I’m dead,” he says, adjusting the monitor.

“Don’t say that,” Clark says, reaching out, the tips of his fingers tracing the side of his face.

It’s the most intimate gesture that Clark has ever offered him. For years, he’s practiced conscious control over his autonomic reflexes. That serves him now. His heartbeat remains steady, his pupils dilate no further.

“Yes, well,” he says, shifting so the hand falls away.

He reaches behind him and puts the mask back in place.

Some people call him callous because he mentions Jason more than Stephanie. It doesn’t hurt any less.

They occasionally invite him over for dinner. Both Lois and Clark cook. Bruce brings the wine.

One night, he hesitates as Clark walks him to the door. Bruce turns and looks at Lois standing near the table, clearing the dishes.

She should invite him to stay for a cup of coffee, another glass of wine. If it’s ever going to happen, this is the only logical way. The two of them must have discussed it at some point.

“Maybe next time, soldier,” she says, a small smile. “We have a busy day tomorrow. You know how it is.”

“Next time,” he says.

He turns and offers Clark his hand. He takes it, but then embraces him, pats him on the back.

“Safe trip,” Clark says, before closing the door.

Bruce declines the next dinner invitation he receives.

Clark will never hit him willingly. But for an invulnerable creature, he’s subject to influence. Mind control. Magic. He’s beaten Bruce several times, broken bones.

Most of the time, Bruce doesn’t hold it against him. Most of the time.

One day, in the Fortress, his ribs still sore, Clark points to the lead-sealed pocket on the utility belt. “Open it and hit me,” he says.

Bruce gets several punches in, Clark not resisting, until he’s on top of Clark on the floor, snarling.

Clark’s bleeding and it’s not enough. He’s impossibly hard and Clark would let him, acquiesce.

This is scenario # 23. Bruce currently has 129 scenarios, all of them plausible. Only eleven of them involve coercion. Three on Clark’s part, eight on his.

He rises. “Next time, fight back,” he says.

Clark stares at him from the floor.

“It’s always too damn cold in this place,” he says, walking away.

He should have talked more to Cassandra. He just never thought it would do any good. For her, it’s never been what she hears, but what she sees.

Clark stands in front of Kon’s case in the cave. “Thank you,” he says, voice tight.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Bruce says.

“I know. How’s he holding up?”

“He’s more like me than I ever wanted to see. How do you think?”

Clark blinks, nods his head, turns back to the case.

This is scenario # 85, and completely inappropriate. Let Clark deal with this himself. He should.

Bruce turns when he gets to the stairs. “Just turn the lights out when you’re done,” he says. He goes upstairs.

He thinks that whoever came up with the term World’s Finest should be jabbed with a cattle prod several times.

They share villains now, completely ridiculous. He never wanted Metropolis’s worst invading Gotham. He’s got enough on his plate.

The next one that says, “When Superman comes for you...” is going to lose several teeth. Even if he is dangling above a tank full of sharks.

Shark tanks. That one just gets old.

“Do you want to hold her?” Selina says.

He looks down at the bassinet. Helena’s not asleep. Alfred would use the term ‘fussy’.

“No,” he says.

“Suit yourself,” she says. “And the answer’s still no.” She brushes past him in her bathrobe, picks the baby up. “So stop showing up here unannounced. Just do a paternity test and get it over with.”

Bruce turns. Selina sits on the edge of the bed, pulls the robe to one side and breastfeeds. She sighs. “She’s not yours, Bruce.”

He’s done the math. The answer’s still maybe. But Selina has her own life now, made her choices, some good ones. And he certainly doesn’t come without a body count.

“I believe you,” he says. And he goes.

Sometimes he wonders if he has Nightingale complex, among other things. He’s a horrible patient, but he lingers too long with the injured.

Clark sits on the floor of the communal shower in the Watchtower. Bruce kneels behind him, scrubbing his back with a steel-wire pad. He occasionally pours hydrogen peroxide over the scrub pattern, watches the green dust froth out, pink bubbles. Red and green swirl down to the drain in the center of the floor.

“Does it hurt?” he says.

“That would be a yes, Captain Obvious,” Clark says, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around his knees. His hair slightly lengthened from the force of the spray.

“You’re vulnerable enough for an analgesic and a topical anesthetic. I offered.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the brightest crayon in the box.”

Bruce smiles, despite himself. Clark’s version of humility includes not broadcasting his intelligence. He only reaches towards sarcasm in moments of insecurity and familiarity.

“I should have seen it,” Clark says. “I should have...”

“Shhh,” Bruce says, “We got our people out. That’s all that matters.”

“Are they...?”

“You took the worst of it. They’re fine.”

Clark slumps a little more forward in relief.

Eventually, the water runs clear. Bruce sets the scrubbing pad and bottle down, but continues to stroke that broad back, the wounds lessening beneath his fingers. Clark shivers.

“I think that’s the last of it,” he says.

Clark reaches back, takes Bruce’s hand in his before he can stand, back away, reassert that distance they’ve always needed.

“Clark...” he says in warning, a whisper.

“It’s all right, Bruce.” Clark’s head turns, looking.

This is scenario # 54. Bruce has already locked the door, turned off the camera. No one will see, but that’s not important.

He leans in, just a brush, excusably fraternal. Clark sighs but doesn’t press for more.

“We should go,” he says. “You need to get in the ultraviolet tank.”

He rises, reaches for a towel, unlocks the door.

For Bruce, the sins of omission will always be less than the ones of commission. He’s crossed too many lines in his life.

Clark foregoes the tank, sleeps face down on a futon spread out on the floor of the manor’s solarium. The sun will be up in just two hours. Bruce swirls a brandy, and looks at him from the doorway.

The futon is a queen-size. Clark sleeps to one side, having made room. It could be force of habit or an invitation. Bruce should turn and ascend the stairs. Instead, he sets the brandy down, opens up his robe and lies beside him.

He sleeps. And if he dreams, he doesn’t recall them in the morning.

crossposted to LJ

Can I blame Warren Ellis too? He makes me read things! Glorious things!

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:14:36 GMT

Well, I've been lazy and have only posted to LJ for a while. I promise to be more vigilant!

I've been busy most of this week with a sick kid. Late nights and little sleep and nothing to do but comfort and waiting. *sigh*

So I'm scattered. But random things make me happy!

Like awesomely it's-funny-now 70's SuperBatFamily stuff...

Oh, Bruce and Clark Jr., you just go ahead and rap! Whee!

And everyone's seen this glorious Apollo/Midnighter Mankissing Megapost over at scans_daily, yes?

But this Apollo/Midnighter scene makes me a happy Romany...

Also! Our very own frimfram and whatistigerbalm are making an *excellent* Authority fancomic, Off Duty. Only the first ten pages are up, but it's ten pages of yay! I believe, if you wish, that you can make comments to their post over at theauthority, here.

As far as Apollo/Midnighter fic:

because Apollo can fly us both above the rain by groaty

The Business by basingstoke

are both excellent.

Yes, I'm reading Apollo/Midnighter fic. *facepalm* And now, I have to go in search of the the trades. Oh, Warren Ellis, you are crafty!

crossposted to LJ, IJ & JF

Thoughts: Smallville 7x03, "Fierce".

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:04:30 GMT

fierce

Main Entry: fierce
Pronunciation: \ˈfirs\
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): fierc·er; fierc·est
Etymology: Middle English fiers, from Anglo-French fer, fers, fiers, from Latin ferus wild, savage; akin to Greek thēr wild animal
Date: 14th century
1 a: violently hostile or aggressive in temperament b: given to fighting or killing : pugnacious
2 a: marked by unrestrained zeal or vehemence b: extremely vexatious, disappointing, or intense
3: furiously active or determined
4: wild or menacing in appearance
— fierce·ness noun

--from Merriam-Webster

At first glance, the title of this episode seems clunky at best. For what's fierce about it exactly? We have Clark and Lana's reunion, emotionally muted. Clark and Kara quibble but without the intensity of their first and second meeting. Even Lex and Lana manage to be civil. Perhaps we could say that the three mutant Miss Sweet Corn contestants are fierce since they're the FOTW, but that's reaching.

And yet the title's apt. Jimmy comes to the conclusion that all meteor mutants are dangerous, somehow inhuman and certainly not deserving of being treated as human. They're monsters, freaks. He says this to Chloe, who herself is a mutant, and fears that revelation, that he somehow might be right.

We're reminded that Clark and Kara just aren't human. They have powers that need to be controlled. And as much as it makes me smile that Clark's heat vision literally gives him a happy (smiley face watermelon!), and as hysterical as Kara making her watermelon explode is, this also shows that these powers need to be tempered.

Tempered as iron or steel, a sword, fierce and strong, to protect as well as cut.

"Are you a savior or are you a warning?" Lex asks of Kara at the end of the episode. He compares her to an angel earlier, mostly to throw the government agent off-track, but part of him believes it, that both are possible. He offers her protection in exchange for the truth, but he threatens her as well, a subtle fierceness.

This whole scene marvelous for it's parallels to his relationship with Clark. "As I would have protected others close to me if they had only told me the truth." And it's interesting to note that the present as well as the past tense operates in his statement.

For Clark is still very much present tense for him. He strides into the farmhouse without even knocking, as if he has a right to be there. He's comfortable despite his words, not just to speak to Lana, but to exist in that space. And once again, he threatens her while complimenting her. For if he's no longer morally worthy of Clark, than neither is she. "What would Clark think?" he says, as a warning but also as if Clark is still a worthy moral arbiter, the angel with the sword of paradise in his hands.

He knows about Clark. He as much tells Kara this. And that image, that beginning, is still there.

The angelic parallels still run in Lex's mind: the sun behind Clark's back as Lex opens his eyes, choking, still wet from the river. These are all refreshed with Kara, and it comes back to Clark. Clark still holds that sword, that decisive power. Angels are not human either. And if Lex cannot be saved, then he will be the whisperer, the one with the power to deny everyone else, to thrust them out of that light.

"If I wanted revenge..." he tells Lana in the previous episode. I think he does. And that seed of doubt - small, barbed and fierce - is it.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ & LJ.

Fic: "Peripheral Vision", SV/DCU, Bruce/Clark, Teen

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:28:13 GMT

I'm actually away visiting family. This isn't much. Just to prove I can write again.

Title: Peripheral Vision
Author: Romany
Fandom: Smallville/DCU
Pairing: Bruce/Clark
Rating: Teen, PG-13
Length: 1721 words
Spoilers: future fic, no real spoilers
Warnings: slash, minimalism
Disclaimer: Not mine, seriously. All belongs to Al & Miles, WB/CW and DC Comics.

Summary: Clark says those three little words: I trust you.

“Peripheral vision,” Superman says. He’s in the Batcave. Batman stands by the monitors, intent on the computer screen.

“What?” he says, looking up frowning, concentration broken.

“Why I don’t wear one.”

Batman sighs, reaches over to the coffee pot that’s just finished brewing. He pours himself a cup. “All right,” he says. “Why you don’t wear what.”

“A mask,” Superman says, walking over to the coffee. He picks up a mug, pours. Usually he avoids caffeine this late at night, but only out of habit, not necessity. The cup is warm in his palm. “You asked.”

“Six months ago. I must have been in the mood for conversation.” He sits in the swivel chair, turns back to the screen.

“We can have one now,” he says. “I’m just standing here.”

Batman opens up a filing cabinet, pulls out a handful of plain manila folders. “Then go through these. Look for patterns, points of origin.”

The folders are each at least four inches thick. “Well, that’s exciting.” Superman unfolds his arms and sits down next to him. He picks up the first folder, reads.

After two minutes, he says, “How do you stand it? You know, having it blocked?”

“The folders, Clark.”

“Here,” he says, handing them back. “Done. I made notes on the inside covers. I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t know where you keep your post-its.”

Batman blinks. “I really don’t like it when you do that.”

Clark spins in his chair, slow, human time. “I read each file twice.”

“You could have missed something…”

“I didn’t!” He spins again, cape wafting around. The cape brushes Batman’s shoulder.

“Stop that. Now.”

“I can’t help it,” he says. He drums his fingers along the table edge. “We finished up the case, Bruce. Can’t we, I don’t know, hang out? Socialize?”

“You have a dog. Go play with him.”

“That’s not the point. It’s just…I guess that’s why you don’t have one?”

“Clark, your segues are giving me a headache.” Batman reaches up, pushes his mask and cowl back.

“See? That’s why I don’t wear one. Look, you’re all sweaty and cranky.”

Bruce rubs his hand through his hair. “Are you twelve?”

“No, but I’m not fifty either.”

“I am not fifty.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

“And…we’re having a conversation. I win.”

“You’re needling, there’s a difference.”

“I’m drawing you out. It’s a painful process.”

“For me, definitely. I am capable of hurting you.”

This time, Clark blinks. He pauses, says softly, “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Bruce smiles slightly, the corners of his mouth.

Clark looks at him. “Sardonic,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“You. The sense of humor you claim you don’t have.” Clark leans forward, takes off his boots.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting comfortable. It’s been a long day.” He unfastens the cape, drapes it on the table.

“Are you planning on staying?” Bruce rises, walks over to the suit cabinet. He takes off the cape, removes the utility belt.

Clark hesitates, tries to read the set of Bruce’s shoulders. “Are you asking me to go?”

Bruce says nothing. He strips down. Back still turned, Clark looks. Two new scars, slashes across the mid-back, crisscrossing the old, a new pattern. Another story that Bruce has never told.

“Bruce, do you want me to go?”

The scars stiffen, then relax. A breath. “No,” he says. He doesn’t turn around.

Clark says nothing. He leans back in the chair, puts his feet up, waits. The moments tick, the rhythm of the cave. He sips his coffee.

“I rather you didn’t,” Bruce says, reaching for a robe.

“I’m sorry,” Clark says. “I’ll go.” He starts to rise.

“I meant look. You’re cataloging,” Bruce turns. The thin red line, almost parallel to the clavicle, disappears into the robe’s collar. This is new too.

“Are you self-conscious about them?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“You know why.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“I’m vulnerable and you’re not.”

“I have scars. No, really. They’re just kind of old.”

Clark pulls the top half of the costume over and off, places it on top of the cape. He points to his right bicep. “See this? Pete and I tried to hop the fence out at the back field when we were six. My shirt ripped on an old nail, took some of the skin off with it.”

Bruce snorts in disbelief, folds his arms. “I don’t see it.”

“Oh, it’s faded, but it’s there. I could still get banged up when I was little. Seriously, look.”

Clark traces the line, white and impossibly slim, two inches at best.

Bruce moves forward, hesitant. He extends his bare hand, just the fingertips, feeling. His eyes widen, only slightly.

“I have more,” Clark says.

Bruce pulls back. “Don’t,” he says.

Clark laughs. “Hey, I know they’re boring compared to yours but…”

Bruce’s hand hovers, just millimeters from the skin. Clark feels the fine hairs of his arm rise up, electrons reacting. He looks up, meets Bruce’s eyes for a moment, blue and open before Bruce looks away, mouth set.

“We’re not doing this,” Bruce says.

“Oh,” Clark says, a small sound.

“You can’t possibly be that naïve.”

“I’m not,” Clark says, “but I wasn’t setting you up.” He grins. “I’m not that smooth.” He pauses. “Look, Bruce, we’re…”

“Friends?”

“Took the word right out of my mouth. But yeah, friends.”

“Then we need to stay that way.” Bruce pulls his hand back. Clark shivers, skin now cold, tingling in the pattern of a handprint that never arrived.

“It’s not like I’ve never thought about it,” he says.

Bruce doesn’t step back. He raises his hand again, retraces the scar. “Have you ever…?”

“With a guy? No.”

“I just thought…”

“I was naïve then. But I would’ve. He didn’t push.”

“Once again, we’re not doing this.”

“If this is dissuasion, you suck at it.” Clark reaches up, places his hand over Bruce’s.

Bruce says nothing.

“Seriously,” he says, shifting. “I’m getting really turned on.”

“Then you need to go.” Bruce tries to pull back, but Clark keeps his hand there, steady and warm.

Clark closes his eyes. “God, you’re a tease,” he says.

“I could say the same.” Clark feels Bruce lean in, a whisper, breath in his hair. He relaxes, hand loosening. Bruce steps back, gaining distance.

Clark grips his hair in frustration, grits his teeth. Counts to ten. “You know, that bordered on cruel. I hate your stoicism.”

“You don’t hate anything, Clark.”

Clark stands, walks over to Bruce, manages to loom even with the indiscernible height difference. “What are we doing?”

“Drawing boundaries.”

Clark reaches, grabs both shoulders, but carefully. “I could just…”

Bruce’s breathing is even. Too even. Controlled. The heart beat too. “Do you spend every spare moment working on your autonomic reflexes?”

“Don’t joke,” Bruce says, leaning into the grip, pushing, wrapping his arms and holding, wrestling style, battle-ready.

“Why not? This is just a game to you, isn’t it?”

Bruce stills. “Clark, let go,” he whispers. Clark releases him, notices where they‘re standing.

“The mats, Bruce? If that’s not a set-up, I don’t know what is.”

But Bruce moves away, back to the monitors. He sips his coffee, tightens the robe which has somehow fallen loose. “I’ve never been more honest with anyone,” he says.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is.”

Clark sighs. “Sometimes I just don’t get you.”

“Then stop trying.”

“One of these days, you’re going to have to let someone in,” Clark says.

“We work together.”

“Don’t give me that. I gave up counting who’s slept with who in the League.”

“You and Diana, for one.”

“I was magically compelled!”

“What’s your excuse now? I don’t want to fool around with you , Clark.”

And what is he pushing for, exactly? Bruce, angry and confused, no matter how much he’d deny it, stands there, hair falling into his face. Barefoot, cup of coffee in his hand, robe askew. He looks utterly human. And beautiful.

“What do you want, Bruce?” Clark says.

Bruce folds one arm over his chest. “You can’t handle what I want.”

“Try me.”

Bruce smiles, viper deadly. He glides over. “I want to see you bleed. I want you to push me to my knees and force my mouth open. I want…”

“Okay,” Clark says.

Bruce stops. “What? I didn’t finish.”

“Whatever it is, it’s okay. I trust you.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Go get the box.” Clark nods to the wall containing the hidden safe, Bruce’s ultimate weapons. “Get it.”

Bruce’s mouth falls slightly open. He stares at Clark.

“Okay, you’ve got a piece in your utility belt, right? I’ll get it.”

Clark starts to go over to the uniform cabinet.

“Clark!”

Clark takes two more steps, three. A hand grabs his shoulder. “Don’t be stupid.”

He turns. “I trust you, Bruce.”

“Don’t…” The robe has fallen open again. Clark leans in.

“I trust you…”

Bruce doesn’t pull away. His heartbeat skitters, lost and out of bounds, as Clark closes that distance. He tastes of coffee and fear, acrid and tangible.

The robe falls to the floor. Clark may have helped. He’s not sure.

“Wow,” he says, low, mouth slipping down Bruce’s jaw, a breath.

“We’re not doing this here,” Bruce says.

A change, an extra word, an amendment. Now only the cave a negative space.

“Where?”

Bruce straightens, naked, but with no less armor. “Upstairs,” he says.

“Oh.” Upstairs, where Bruce can slide into another costume--brandy and silk sheets.

Bruce collects himself and his coffee, ties the sash on his robe. “I don’t often bring people to my bed, Clark.”

“I wasn’t…”

“You were. I go elsewhere for that.” He pushes the button, opens the elevator. “Well?” he says, holding the door.

Clark stands there, holding his cape.

“Don’t think,” Bruce says. “I’m not. Otherwise…” The door begins to close.

Clark joins him, nerves and speed. The door closes. They shoot up to the library.

He places a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce can slip away, elude him even here. It’s a big house.

“I’ll have to look into the mask,” he says as they as they ascend the grand stairs.

“Why?”

“Peripheral vision, Clark.” He pauses, the corners of his mouth twitch. “I never saw you coming.”

He opens the bedroom door. They step inside.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ & LJ.

Thoughts: Smallville 7x02, "Kara"

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:33:05 GMT

As for me, I would never, ever hurt you again.

--Lex Luthor, "Kara"

Although the episode's title indicates that the episode focuses on the new character of Kara, the scene between Lex and Lana carries the most emotional weight. We see Lex, newly freed from jail, jet over to Shanghai to confront Lana, obsessively playing the security recording from their last confrontation.

"That's the last time you'll ever touch me," Lana says on tape.

This is a lie. As a prediction, it's untrue. As a wish, it is unfulfilled. For as Lex steps forward, begging Lana to kill him, her resolve wavers and he grabs her wrist - a strong and threatening gesture contradicting both her words and his. And he disarms her, physically as he has done emotionally.

Masterfully played, Lex has never been suicidal. He may be willing to die. He's considered a few things to be worth more than death. In this case, if Lana pulls that trigger, she becomes a true Luthor - monstrous - and someone that Clark cannot forgive, much as Clark cannot seem to forgive Lex now.

Lex urges Lana to return to Smallville, but for what purpose? For Lex always has a purpose. We know from the previous episode, "Bizarro", that Clark is not absent from Lex's mind, no matter his new obsession and mysterious savior. Is Lex on such a different trajectory that he would graciously allow Lana and Clark to become a couple again?

"If I wanted revenge, I wouldn't be here," he says.

We'll have to see what it is he does want.

Lana Luthor may be dead to the world, but she's alive for Lex, still a Luthor, and family - as twisted as the Luthor concept of family is.

Currently, Clark has other problems. He's confronted with a cousin that he never knew he had, another Kryptonian that becomes his responsibility as much as she claims to be responsible for him, her mission. Although she possesses the power of flight - which still eludes him - she needs him to acclimate, to control some of her other abilities, to shed some of that natural Kryptonian arrogance. Once the elder, she is now the younger and they have much to teach each other.

Let's hope their 'meet violent' bodes better than the 'meet violent' that Clark had seven years ago.

She is family, and Clark values that more than anything.

But family - as much as it brings closeness - can bring friction. A rivalry is set up as Lois pursues the ship and Chloe does all she can to prevent that pursuit, to discredit it. But the other new character, fresh from the Star City Post, Grant Gabriel, sees value in the story and in Lois. His words to Chloe seem unnecessarily harsh, but what they are is a reminder - a reminder to remember who she used to be, that her role of Clark's Secret Keeper is hurting her. She now brushes over the truth while claiming that is the one thing she values. This can only hurt her journalism, her career, as she skirts that truth. Gabriel may, in fact, set her back on that path.

And that path may lead elsewhere. We know the final story. Gabriel does not stay editor of the Planet, Perry White eventually gains that position. Lois becomes the star reporter - her prose a "bengal tiger leaping off the page."

Could the Star City Post be in her future?

Lois isn't coldly calculating here. She struggles with her own burning ambition for the truth - much as Chloe did before the revelation of The Secret - and her affection for Chloe. They're at odds; Chloe threatened. Lois does everything she can to bolster Chloe, to support her.

After all, she's family. And Lois, as Clark, she values that more than anything.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ & LJ.

Random (me)mosity.

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:04:51 GMT

A gazillion years ago, slinkling (lj) tagged me for the 'random six things about me' meme:

1. I've done various bits of volunteering. You know, give something back. For me, this is better in theory than in practice for I am a sensitive flower and rather lazy. But for about two years, I gave a free poetry workshop at a local downtown café, extremely informal. All sorts would show up, anywhere from dot.commer millionaires to homeless people, all clutching notebooks and sweating.

2. To this day, I cannot stand the smell of baking bagels. We moved around quite a bit in San Francisco - sometimes to stay ahead of the rent, others to something a bit better - but one of those places happened to be upstairs from a bagel bakery and I'd wake up around five in the morning to the stench of cooking bagel dough. This does not prevent me from eating the finished product though.

3. At this same apartment, I never had to put a flashlight under my pillow. The streetlight filtered strongly through right to my bed, and I'd read surreptiously to the sound of the all-night bus lines whizzing by. I'd sometimes miss the first of two city buses to get to school the next morning. I'm still not a morning person.

4. I cannot stand bell peppers, cooked or raw. One summer, I forced myself to eat them because 'they're *good* for you'. I ended up not eating very much that summer because I had the constant acrid taste of bell peppers in my mouth.

5. I once was adamantly childfree. But Mr. Romany's biological clock went off with no snooze alarm setting. Instead of divorcing on the grounds of irreconcilable differences, I agreed to try. Being in my thirties, I thought this would take a while since quite a few of my friends were trying and having difficulties. Our first Romanita is a one-shot wonder. So is our second. The second child was my idea.

6. My mother claims that I had been raised with no TV in hopes that I would become a reader. This is not true (however, I did become a reader). I just wasn't allowed to watch TV on school nights. When I did have TV access, she didn't regulate what I watched. So at the tender age of eight, I became a horror movie addict. Creature Features (with Bob Wilkins - KTVU) on Saturday nights and Chiller Thriller on Friday nights. Sometimes Chiller Thriller would be on Saturday afternoons as well. I'd seen the majority of Hammer Films by the time I was ten, as well as most of the Godzilla movies. There are only so many horror films in the world so sometimes they'd show classic science fiction films (also Bob Wilkins later became Captain Cosmic, hosting an afternoon science fiction show). To this day, I'm not much of a sitcom person.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ & LJ.

I left my heart...oh they did not, did they?

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:25:27 GMT

Okay, I've seen up to SPN 2x18, "Hollywood Babylon", but I have a few comments related to the episode before that, "Heart".

So San Francisco, yay! My hometown. Madison's house, zomg! No victorian that I'm aware of in the city has a sideyard like that. The land! In the city, all the houses are pretty much squished together. It's a tiny city, only 49 square miles. And the house is huge; property costs about as much as it does in Manhattan. So my question: Where are her six roommates hiding out? You know, the ones she has to have to help pay the rent/mortgage. I guess it's split into apartments/condos since she has a neighbor across the hall, but still.

A blonde prostitute in Hunters Point? Huh? Last time I checked, that was the serious projects and not the red light district. Hee! Mr. Glen has quite the werewolf commute there.

And "Heart" as in "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"? Dude, they did not go there, tell me...the pun, it burns!

And there were many tears and OH NOES! as Sam had to do the only thing, all noble, and Dean wanted to spare him that pain and angst up to eleventy. But um, after three nights, isn't the full moon kind of over? Didn't they have a month reprieve to figure things out? Let Sam get laid some more? Mr. Romany and I just blinked at each other and said, "Didn't these guys ever watch Buffy? Dude, so unnecessary!"

That said, I am enjoying the show and Mr. Romany is on the okay, maybe liking, side of tolerance so we'll be caught up by the time S3 starts in two weeks.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ & LJ.

"So what does this have to do with that?" he said, irritated.

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:03:13 GMT

I'm off to reply to comments. But before I do, here's something that the LJ auto-post thingie coughed up for me. It's a mixture of fic from 2-1/2 different fandoms, essays and a sprinkle of RL. In other words: Hee! And surprisingly surreal meta-fic.

This started out as a few sentences that I ejected from another story that I'm working on.
I'm not sure what this is. My brain? I got to see for myself."

"Yeah, if you don't pick up the pace a bit, old man," Spike would gasp. "You telling me what a right bastard he is, how he's so fucked up. Sucks to be him. Sucks to be him. Sucks to be dead, don’t it, Spike?”

“Lord, you’re in your cups.”

“What? I’m not allowed? You get shit-faced all the time. Go from infancy to adolescence in one brief shining moment. Maybe it has something to do with the space ship, the meteor shower and the caves. He's reasonably guessed some, if not all, of Clark's powers:

Lionel: What's this? [He picks up folder from Lex's desk containing 8x10 photos.]

Lex: A single frame picked off a security camera from one of the popular ships among Gunn writers. But if you're looking for teh hot sex here, you're not going to add up to the idea." God, she shouldn't have to tell him.

"Don't freak, Chloe, please." He started to pull away. Must want this a little too because Spike wasn’t on his arse. So he wreathed one arm around him, whispered, “We’re not done.”

Angel flinched.

“No, we’re not. Shhh.”

Angel relaxed, opened his thighs, leaned his head down, hands still against the wheel. "Our lives would have been said subtly over and over again for twenty years.

Angelus had taken on the role of Byronic hero, the Dark Romantic--and no this is not just a leg over. Not for him; not for Angel neither. Never was, really. When he followed Angel into the shower himself.

He came back to find Clark practically hyperventilating. "Lex, please!"

"I'll handle this, Clark. Calm down."

"Thank you, Mr. Peterson, but I promised Clark here just one drink. Wouldn't want to get him into too much trouble, now would we?" He leaned down with a sly wink. "Why don't you let me get things started.” And Clark started stroking himself, slowly, eyes never leaving Clark's face. “That one...that one's always been a match for him as she is for Clark. Lex leaves no part of her untouched. Just as Lex touches every woman that Clark so much as looked at them in over a year. He's thought once or twice to prove a point – Selina, Talia, even Harvey before the accident. Forget Lex on his knees behind Angel on the bed, the faint stain of water underneath him, towel still wrapped for a ludicrous discretion. And he was watching television. The light, answering images, shifted across his face. No less dangerous than he'd ever been. "Weekends in the Hamptons? Antiquing?" He snorted. "Really, Clark, you're much too easy."

Years ago, yes, he would have kept a discreet distance, allowing Clark any surveillance.

But this was his city, Lex the visitor. An uncharacteristically drunk visitor, but no less dangerous.

"Why, whomever do you mean, Lex?" he inquired with the carefully cultivated tone of the bored and famous. He couldn't imagine that Luthor would be interested in the slightest in the sleek debutante that had accompanied him this evening. Window dressing only. Appearances. He barely recalled her name.

Lex swirled his scotch, continued gazing at the city lights. "Most people are attracted to their power, but their virtue, the very thing he claims to be protecting—so that they are no longer human but something else. They become what they've been chosen to fight.

These soldiers, this army, each one of them is as strong as Clark. Clark, who will later become a self-proclaimed Protector of Humanity? Or would it have made the bus, but he didn't feel like sitting and being ordinary. Not this morning. Not today. The corn was oh so very tall as he sped into it, all silk and husk and bending. He risked a whoop in the middle of the commons, Harvey's back disappearing towards the dorms.

"He has a free too," Bruce said. "If you're going to be pissed."

But then a breath, a sigh, answered him: acquiescence and life and death and he will take. Oliver will...

It's a fate Clark deserves. More than you did all those years ago when Spoken Word was The Thing.

14. I have not loved my fellow fen as myself. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. For your sake, have mercy on me and forgive me; that I may never post, but it works as a compliment for men over forty." But he didn't get anywhere. He couldn't get in.

“Clark, could you just relax?” One more jab. “Relax!”

Oh shit. Him and his ass of titanium, his own internal fortress. Lex tried once more into the breach, my friends. Oh god. “Maybe you could try your fingers first or something? Seriously, Lex, have you even done this before?”

“Yes, I have! I should think I know that? I couldn't help it. I couldn't. I..."

And his anger miraculously seeped away. If this was only one production assistant. One. And she was busy in the studio. So Redd Foxx calls up and demands to speak to the producer, the phones are ringing off the hook with people wanting tickets, and I have my preferences. But I like the link? Of course, I said, I do like him." He moved closer to Bruce. "But you've suspected, haven't you? You're not laughing and telling me to fuck off. I can tell you what they want to see any bruises on that perfect skin.

Yes, he's seen them, mottled and glaring. Something he never wants to see that's what it is, I didn't finish it . So then I thought of making a series praising one person on my flist read this fandom, so I don't feel like such a hypocrite for posting this. Because it's off-the cuff and it's rough cut. Heh, go me. Don't even ask me what I was thinking. Okay, ask. Tell me WTF? It's better than hearing the crickets chirp.

You guys are going to hang out in the middle of the crowd, made his way to do harm to his person. After a long day of meetings and negotiations in Metropolis, Lex didn't much feel like subjecting himself to the point of mobility and retrieved a bar towel from the liquor stand.

Clark discontinued his rummaging and just looked at him. Don't do it, his eyes said. Think of something else.

Bruce looked down at the bottle. "I don't get drunk," he said, almost apologetic. "This is kind of pointless." He also noticed that Lex's hand hadn't left his shoulder. He shifted, just a little, until that hand slid down loosely around his neck, and said without the slightest hint of jealousy...almost interest, “We both know that your tastes tend toward...the Byzantine, so don't tell me that you don't have an NY Times online subscription, it's free and it only takes a few sips and sighs, places the glass on his desk. He walks over to Superman, toes the kryptonite with a polished Italian shoe. It rolls a foot, then two, across the floor.

"Time to move, hero. I want you to stay, but appearances."

"Yeah, I get it, Lex," Clark said as he poked it mournfully with a fork.

"Why don't we go back to my place for an digestif?" Lex suggested. "My private bar has a superior selection, plus a view of the dissection table. Clark's body, without so much as a sheet, is splayed across it.

"You may begin, Mr. Carter," he says as he descends, fangs bared. "Daddy always knows best, you little shit. When you wake up you're gonna have a whole new perspective."

The bite, when it comes, is quick. The true horror is that he can control. He can't have both, anymore than Lionel could. He's repeating history because he doesn't care to learn from it. By denying his father, he becomes his father.

He may have been a voyeur after all since he said nothing but "Clark..." as he pushed Clark back, his tongue wandering across that broad chest. He worked his way towards them. Lex adjusted his suit jacket, laid it on the side of his face that was already blackening with bruises, “I can’t sweat the small stuff anymore, Spike. She was already dead.”

Spike stood up, reached inside the duster and muttered, “Just meant doing for you. Helping you about the flat and all.” He looked away.

“I’m touched, Spike, I really am,” Angel scoffed. But then he paused, rewound the last few years?” Spike grinned up at him as he draws his last.

"It's Christmas Eve, Clark. Don't you have somewhere to go?" And Lex knows this is not mutually exclusive from classic hedonism; hell, look at Byron.)

So what does this have to do with that?" Clark said, irritated.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ & LJ

I spam for a cause. A few, actually.

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 23:58:24 GMT

I forgot! *sheepish*

Sign-ups to offer something for Sweet Charity (this time to benefit RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network), end on the 8th. But that's Greenwich time so it's sooner than you think. So, go offer something!

I've too much backlog to do that myself. *hangs head* But bidding starts on the 9th. *gets wallet ready*

Also, this is a bit late, but a good friend of sweptawaybayou's lost everything in a house fire. She and others have set up Fire Fic (on LJ), as well as Fire Fic (on IJ) for the LJ-phobic. I'm not sure but I think they're still taking offers and bids even though the comm's been up for a bit.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ and LJ.

For the record

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 23:23:30 GMT

I have no opinion on bandom. This is because I'm old and rock out to the harpsichord. Me ranting about it would be the fannish equivalent of "Hey you kids, get off my lawn!"

This is how old I am: I remember when Donnie Wahlberg was the famous one.

*jitterbugs*

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ & LJ

Just another year older.

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:17:40 GMT

Once again, I am a prime number. At least in years. Forty-one. Yikes! Now I am solidly (pats belly full of cake) in my forties. And yes, I did find my first gray hair the other day, why do you ask? *prunifying*

I hope I got a chance to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday. I may have even done so more than once if you have multiple journals. Because my memory, she is not so good.

But birthday largesse (and thanks!):

caoilainn and a bashful anonymous person (thank you, unknown sentient being!) sent me e-certificates. Thank you! I shall spend them wisely! If, er, cheesecake and comic books could be considered wise. *g*

lim sent me a fun e-card and the Romanitas enjoyed it muchly. I had to replay it again. And again. And...well, hours of family enjoyment. Thank you!

morganichelle, mskatej and snycock gave me lovely virtual goodies for my LJ user info page. Thank you!

The Romanitas each got me a little something this year. My oldest gave me two pairs of earrings and the youngest gave me a necklace suitable for a six-year old (which she happens to be). It did not fit. "Oh," she said quite innocently as I struggled to clasp it, "Can I have it?" She's been wearing it for the past four days. I think I need to teach her the concept of 'take-backs' and why that is not a good thing. Although, I have a sneaking suspicion that she already knows. I'm not sure whether to be irked by her bad manners or proud of her cunning. Can I be both?

The earrings from my little drag prince (do you know how hard it is to find boy's clothes for a slender, petite, eight-year old girl? Boy's shoes? The skater-boy haircut is a little easier to manage. *g*), on the other hand, are quite me.

Mr. Romany gave me an all-in-one thingiemabob (copier, scanner, printer). I'll figure it out soon. *g*

There is no more cake (home-made lemon by me, free-form icing by the Romanitas). This makes me sad.

crosspost warning: JF, IJ, GJ and LJ.

[Random] pebbles in my mouth

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:27:54 GMT

This is ridiculous. I'm at the point (long past, actually) where I have so much to say that I can't say anything at all.

So, random:

1. I made this post regarding the Russian execution video. In response to one (or several) abuse reports, the OP has been suspended. Thanks to stoney321 (LJ) for this well-thought out post and further research. I haven't been able to find any recent news on this. Maybe someone else out there has been luckier?

2. Just recently found this seven-year old rant against the Harry Potter series and this editorial: "Dumbing down American readers" by Harold Bloom. Let me say that I've a knee-jerk reaction to anything that Harold Bloom has to say. I am not reasonable in this. I think the man has had a stranglehold on generations of literature students and most of his criticism makes me form a fist to battle random free electrons in the air. Norton anthologies are full of his interpretations and biases as well as his selections (and notice the absences with every new edition). His idea of canon makes me chortle and choke. I have felt this way for a long, long time. So I am not surprised that he finds popular lit banal and horrible and he thinks many people are stupid. And I laugh at what he thinks children should be reading instead of JKR. He is dating himself if he thinks that children would find these classics immediately accessible.

And then I review his list of Western canon and Elinor Wylie is on his list. Considering that quite a few critics want to see her dropped and forgotten, this surprises me. I agree with Bloom about something. *runs screaming for the hills*

3. I watched the first two episodes of Due South last night. I am a horrible person. Not because I watched the show but because I had no interest in slashing Fraser/Ray V. Why? Because I don't find David Marciano attractive in the role of Ray Vecchio (I qualify my statement because I've found the attraction meter for actors/actresses can vary depending on the role). I cringe at the nineties fashions. Cringe! This makes me shallow and a bad fan. *hides*

x-post warning: JF, IJ, GJ and LJ

Just checking in.

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:57:46 GMT

Hey. I'm kind of in a bad place right now. Once in a great while, I spiral when I get stressed and this is one of those times. One of those months (or so). I do believe in the fannish diaspora and will check my other journals (JF, IJ and GJ) before checking LJ.

I do owe fic. I haven't had a chance to write in a while. Funnily, my SV/DCU backstory WIP is all underage. So I guess it's just a matter of degree and the medium of choice. So I have similar shoes. Or flipflops. Or one shoe and one bare foot. Something.

Diaspora

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:48:46 GMT

Well, I'm here. I'm a creature of habit so the small differences here startle me.