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The comm beeped.
Bruce hesitated, his eyes on Clark. His partner was sprawled out across the couch on his stomach, head pillowed against Bruce’s thigh, asleep. He hadn’t yet been sleeping long enough for the little hitches in his breathing from the tears to completely even out, and the bridge of his nose and his cheeks were still red. God, he was beautiful, and all the more when he could take color, here and elsewhere. Bruce gallantly resisted the urge to lean down and kiss him, reaching up instead to tap the comm and accept the transmission.
It was Diana. “Bruce,” she said. “We need you in the Watchtower.”
“Both of us?” Bruce asked, trailing a gentle hand through Clark’s hair. Clark shifted very slightly at the contact, making a soft, contented noise. He didn’t open his eyes.
“Yes,” Diana said. “My apologies.”
Diana was one of exactly two of their coworkers who knew about his and Clark’s arrangement. They’d decided to tell her for exactly this reason: her straightforward, no-nonsense, reliable judgment about what was really worth interrupting their time together. Bruce never liked having to wrap things up earlier than he’d planned, but to date he’d never disagreed with Diana’s prioritization. And they could trust her to run interference for them when their presence really wasn’t needed.
“Debrief in five,” he said. It came out as a statement, but only because he knew Diana was willing and able to contradict him if things were even more urgent than that. He’d been reading her tone, though: she was serious, but not overly alarmed. They could probably have five minutes. And if they could have the time, they needed it.
“I’ll call back then,” she agreed, and disconnected.
Bruce clicked his internal timer on and dropped his hand onto Clark’s bare hip, tapping his fingers lightly.
Clark’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked up at Bruce, sleepiness and contentment settled around him in a way that Bruce was loath to dispel. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Clark’s forehead, then the bridge of his nose, then his waiting lips, against which he whispered, “Morning, sunshine.”
“Already?” Clark asked, half-distracted. His eyes were on Bruce’s mouth.
“Mm,” Bruce tugged lightly on Clark’s curls. “Unfortunately, we have League business.”
“Ah,” The deflation was immediate, but Clark just closed his eyes, took a deep breath that only shuddered a little, and started to push up, already squaring his shoulders. “How long?”
“Diana’s calling back with the debrief in four minutes,” Bruce said. His hand slid free of Clark’s hair, but he let it trail gently along Clark’s spine before falling away completely. “Hey. Good?”
“Good,” Clark’s smile was too quick, and too complicated, and still, for what it was worth, as sincere as it could be. “Lights?”
“Red lights off,” Bruce obliged. The voice-activated lights that lined the ceiling powered down immediately. “Yellow lights on,” he continued. “Full capacity.”
The yellow sun lights were Fortress technology built to house droplets of yellow sun that Bruce had installed in their room for emergencies. Usually, he turned the red lights off and let Clark’s powers come back on their own, with natural exposure to earth’s sun; that method had the added benefit of letting Clark come back to himself slowly, the reduction of lingering pain more or less balanced with the return of his Kryptonian abilities. But there was no time for that right now, not if they were going to be thrust right into a mission, and Clark, who had just made it to his feet, closed his eyes without being told as the lights kicked on, bathing the room in a warm yellow glow.
It was always hard to reconcile his mind to the kind of power Clark carried around in his body day to day, but the difference was never so stark as when it came back upon him all at once. Since Clark’s back was to the room, Bruce couldn’t see his ass - which, for the record, had been a nearly perfect shade of vibrant red before he’d turned the yellow lights on, courtesy of their newest leather paddle - but he watched the flush across his face fade, watched his posture change. Watched him pull back together the mantle of Superman and the weight of Kal El and the softness of Clark Kent and settle it back into place.
Probably anyone else would have missed it, but Bruce knew the minute the heaviness settled back over his partner. Clark so rarely got to put it all down. Regretfully, Bruce reached out and squeezed Clark’s hand. An apology without the words.
Clark’s throat bobbed once. He squeezed back, and then let go, looking around for his sweats. Bruce nodded towards where they still lay, bunched together with his boxers on the floor near the desk, and reached up to tap the comm when it buzzed right on cue.
“Go ahead, Diana.”
Diana conveyed the pertinent information over the next couple of minutes: an unidentified alien ship had entered earth’s orbit an hour ago and sent out a distress call requesting help from Superman.
By name.
Kryptonian name.
Upon being advised that Kal El was unavailable, the aliens become inconsolable. They’d rejected all other offers of assistance, even when assured that everyone on the Watchtower knew and were friends with him. They weren't familiar with the Lantern Corps, and refused to lower their shields even for Hal when he approached the ship. Hal’s brief reconnaissance had upped the League's alarm factor, though: the aliens were using cloaking technology that Hal could see through up close, and the ship underneath bore signs of significant damage. Time was of the essence.
They moved while Diana talked. Bruce didn’t bother getting Clark a comm; with his restored superhearing, he could follow the conversation fine, and having a few more minutes where he wasn’t expected to contribute would be good for him. After Clark had dressed, they headed down to the Cave, where Clark quickly changed into his suit and then, at Bruce’s beckoning, helped Bruce into his as well. Here and there his hands stuttered against one of the armor’s snaps; usually, when Bruce let Clark help him with the armor these days, it was taking it off, and at a much slower pace.
Once the last latch was in place, Bruce turned away and picked the cowl up from the computer’s console. When he turned back, Clark was still standing there, his hands now folded together in the small of his back.
Bruce paused. The posture was - well, it was their protocol. But it wasn’t normal, outside of their room. “Clark?” he asked.
Clark’s hands immediately dropped to his sides, loose again. He glanced sideways at Bruce, his eyes not making it quite past the cowl in Bruce’s hands. “Ready?”
Bruce didn’t bother with that question. “Are you?” he asked instead.
Clark’s shoulders rose and fell. “Sure,” he said.
It wouldn’t be fair to push. Not right now, when there was nothing he could really do to help no matter what Clark said in response. And he wouldn’t just offer empty platitudes, either. Resigned, Bruce lifted the cowl and fitted it into place. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They took the zeta tubes up to the Watchtower. Diana already had a small core team assembled around the conference table: Hal, Barry, J’onn, Ollie. There were printouts in front of each of them; Diana handed Clark and Bruce each a copy as they came into the meeting room.
“Any further contact?” Bruce asked, scanning the document. It was essentially a summary of what Diana had told them, with exception of the addition of a rudimentary ship diagram, courtesy of Hal.
“We’ve been sending out a transmission every five minutes or so,” Diana replied. “But they have stopped responding.”
Because they were waiting for Clark. Bruce sat down in his chair. “Do we know what galaxy they’re from, at least?”
Hal fielded the question, giving his best estimate based on the spacecraft. The aliens had been speaking in another language in the background of their transmission, but the Watchtower’s tech hadn’t been able to filter it enough for Hal or the ring to identify it. The transmission itself had been made in something approximating English.
It really could be one of two things: a legitimate cry for help, or a trap. They had no choice but to respond to it either way, because the possibility that the people on that ship needed their help outweighed the personal risk, every time.
Still, they could be smart about their approach.
“J’onn goes,” Bruce decided. “And we see what they’re after.”
It wasn’t a complicated plan, although that was mostly because Bruce had learned a long time ago that it was better to run through the contingencies in the privacy of his own head until they were actually needed. The ways this first step could fail, and the things they could do to remedy that failure, spun out through his mind in intricate spirals, such that he didn’t even notice at first that no one had responded. It was only after he’d spun uninterpreted through three or four catastrophes - a world record, with this group - that he realized: the room was silent.
No, that wasn’t exactly right.
The room was waiting.
For Clark.
Who didn’t say anything. His eyes remained on the paper in front of him.
Finally, Barry cleared his throat. “Uh, Supes?”
Clark’s eyes lifted, pausing for a half-second on Bruce, and then continued to Barry. “Yes?”
“You don’t have anything to say?” Barry asked.
Clark’s brow furrowed slightly. “Uh,” he said. “I agree with Batman’s plan?”
The surprise in the room was palpable. Around the table, their assembled teammates exchanged glances, ranging from curious to outright concerned.
Bruce very carefully did not shift in his seat. He knew what they were thinking. Usually in meetings like these, Clark would be chomping at the bit to be given the opportunity to put himself in danger to ensure nobody else would have to - and he’d be equally eager to assert his right to do that, no matter how calmly and reasonably Bruce had laid out his own plan. A one-sentence declaration of how they were going to approach things certainly wouldn’t usually fly.
Of course, usually in meetings like these Clark wasn’t only about an hour past having his ass beat, either.
“You do?” Barry asked, his recovery the quickest.
“Yeah,” Ollie put in, leaning forward a little. “Everything good over there, big blue?”
Clark’s eyes slid back to Bruce.
Shit, Bruce thought, looking back into the hazy, pleading blue.
Clark was still floating.
The recriminations replaced the contingency script in his mind. Fuck him, how had he not insisted on Clark looking him in the eye before they’d left the Manor? All the signs had been right there in front of him. And yes, he’d known Clark wasn’t exactly in the mood for this type of thing, but he hadn’t realized…
No. All right, no. He couldn’t let himself get worked up right now, not when Clark was probably glued to his heartbeat. He very carefully did not let his pulse jump, instead clearing his throat. “It’s a good plan. If they’re expecting a Kryptonian, they won’t be prepared for a Martian,” he said, and then shifted a glare towards Barry when the speedster opened his mouth to make another objection. Barry’s mouth snapped shut again. “And Superman’s not that far away if J’onn needs the backup.” Although how much he’d be up for right now was, well, in question. Bruce carefully kept his hands from curling into fists, not wanting to give away any signs of tension. Clark needed calmness and certainty from him right now.
“I also agree with Batman’s plan,” J’onn interjected calmly. “I haven’t been able to get much of a read on our guests’ minds yet, but I think they work together, as a hive. It would be helpful if I could glean some insight into that. Being closer to their ship will give me a better opportunity.”
J’onn was the other person in the League who knew about their arrangement, although that had been less a decision and more just a side effect of their work together; his mindreading was passive and continuous, like Clark’s superhearing. Bruce didn’t always love it, but he wasn’t naive enough to think he could stop it entirely, at least on an ongoing basis. And sometimes - a decent amount of the time, really - it was useful.
He wasn’t going to violate Clark’s trust by asking J’onn what was going on in Clark’s head, of course. At least not unless it became a safety issue. Still, he could take some reassurance from the very slight inclination of J’onn’s head when their eyes caught.
“All right,” Barry said, clapping his hands together to break yet another uneasy silence. “Let’s do this then, I guess.”
It wasn’t a trap.
The aliens had heard about Clark’s name, planet of residence, and reputation during a conversation with a representative of the United Planets they’d encountered while traversing a nearby galaxy and, when their ship had encountered trouble before they started for home, they’d detoured to earth to ask for help. When J’onn, disguised as Superman, approached their ship, they lowered the shields and let him board, taking him on a tour to see what had gone wrong. J’onn’s mindreading abilities came in hand with the alien hivemind, making him ultimately better suited for the job anyway. Within half an hour, he’d convinced the aliens to let his pilot friend - Hal - look over their ship and make the necessary repairs. With everything well in hand and on its way to a satisfactory resolution, Diana dismissed them, and Bruce and Clark went back to the Manor.
Their time on the Watchtower had brought Clark down some, although Bruce knew he wasn’t totally grounded yet; if he were, he’d have insisted on staying until everything was wrapped up. He had put up a token resistance, but they’d been alone in the command room at the time, and all Bruce had had to do was raise an eyebrow for him to capitulate. Still floating, at least a little.
Back in the Cave, Bruce guided them both to the changing area, digging out clothes for Clark: a fresh pair of sweats and his oversized Metropolis University sweatshirt, the one he most liked to burrow into. Clark’s expression shifted when he saw what Bruce was holding, the kind of dry look that meant he had Bruce's number. Bruce added that detail to his internal calculations, as well as the fact that Clark still accepted the outfit without protest, changing into it at a human pace while Bruce stripped out of the armor and fished out clothes for himself. Then, while Bruce changed, Clark picked up the suits and organized them neatly, following another of their rituals. He was just settling the cowl into place when Bruce finally broached the subject.
“You weren't in the right headspace to go to the Watchtower.”
He said the words neutrally, without judgment, but he also didn't try to soften them. Clark's fingers stuttered briefly against the cowl, and then let go. He turned to face Bruce, tucking his hands behind his back. “I know.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“What was I going to say? Sorry, Diana, but I need you to schedule intergalactic emergencies more carefully?” Clark asked. There was playfulness in his tone, but it was held together by sheer force of will; and when Bruce didn’t immediately respond, Clark blew out a breath and let it fall apart. “These are our lives, B. It’s not ever going to be perfect, and sometimes things like this are going to happen. We both know that. We both knew that.”
“Clark,” Bruce said, and then paused. And then tried again, because, well, it was important. “Honey. If you’d had to go out in the field - ”
“I would have pulled it together,” Clark interrupted. His voice had sharpened, but Bruce could hear the desperation buried underneath. “Don’t - Bruce. Don’t do this, all right? It’s good. What we have. What we’re doing. It’s good.”
“It’s good,” Bruce agreed, keeping his voice gentle, an intentional, controlled counter to the whiplash of emotion in Clark’s. “And we’re going to keep finding ways to make it work better.” Which included, he knew, not pushing when Clark still wasn't there yet. Like now. “But we’ll talk about the details later, okay? It can wait.”
Clark nodded.
Any other time, Bruce might have pressed for a verbal response, but he could see that Clark was running up against a lot of his limits right now. They were, by his current assessment, teetering dangerously close to Clark dropping entirely. Bruce had spent enough time in sub drop, long before he’d ever had a name to put on it, to know it wasn’t something he wanted Clark to go through if he could help it. Not that it would always be within his control, of course, but he could still be careful.
With Clark, he would always be as careful as he knew how to be.
Following the prompting of that instinct, he stepped up next to his partner and reached out to cup the back of his neck instead, pulling him down the short distance required for their foreheads to meet. “I’m sorry today didn’t go the way it should have,” he said.
Clark’s eyes fluttered shut. His next breath was shaky.
“Do you want some options?” Bruce continued, keeping his voice low and soft.
Clark shook his head just a little, although not enough to break their point of contact. “You decide,” he said. “Please.”
Bruce took a minute to weigh the options for them both. His first impulse would be to go back to their room, but the options there weren’t really good: either Clark would need to submit to the red sun light process again, or his hearing would be dialed up to eleven, given the leaden barriers. Both ran a real risk of overstimulation. His next thought was the bedroom, but he discarded that as well: it was good middle ground, but Clark usually preferred to lay with his head in Bruce’s lap for aftercare, and that would be harder to do comfortably, even with his Alaskan king. No, he needed someplace with a large, comfortable couch where no one would intrude on them by accident.
“All right,” he said. “Come with me.”
Clark whined under his breath when Bruce pulled away, but lodged no other protest, obediently trailing him up to the family wing and then to Bruce’s father’s study. The couch wasn’t exactly like the one in their room, not quite as long and significantly more worn; it was an addition from Tim’s earliest days as Robin, when he’d stayed with Bruce during school breaks his parents couldn’t make it home for. He’d had a room, of course, even then, but he’d also had a penchant for falling asleep wherever he happened to be parked. After about the third time Bruce had found Tim using one of the book shelves as a pillow, he’d gotten the couch brought in. It would serve their purposes well enough tonight.
He pushed the door open, ushered Clark in, then closed and locked it behind them. That still left the grandfather clock entrance as an excess point from the Batcave, but he’d hear if one of the kids was climbing the stairs long before they got all the way up. Crossing to the couch, Bruce sat at the far end and patted the cushion next to him.
Clark wavered, swaying slightly on his feet. “In here?” he asked.
“You said you wanted me to decide,” Bruce reminded him, letting his voice dip very slightly. The corollary - so let me - went unsaid.
Clark’s lips twitched, just a little. “Sorry,” he said.
Bruce hummed an acknowledgement, and then, “C’mere, sunshine,” he prompted.
Whether at the direct instruction or the name, Clark’s shoulders came down a full inch. He crossed the floor and laid down on the couch, resting his head on Bruce’s thigh. His feet were wedged against the armrest, but Bruce was pleased to see that they did still fit.
Bruce settled a hand into his curls, firm and warm. “If I could,” he said, watching Clark’s face in profile. “I would make everything perfect for you.”
Clark closed his eyes. A thin line of unshed tears glistened on his eyelashes.
That was enough for today, Bruce thought. Just for Clark to hear it, to know how much he meant it. “Rest,” he instructed.
Clark inched forward and pressed his face into Bruce’s stomach. “I love you,” he said there, his voice muffled.
Bruce leaned down and pressed a kiss to Clark’s temple. “I love you endlessly,” he said. “Rest, please.”
It might not have been perfect.
But in moments like these, it was at least pretty damn close.