Interlude 1/5: Mother-not-Quite-in-Law
Title: Interlude 1/5: Mother-Not-Quite-in-Law
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Notes: Interludes 1-5 are set right after "Music of the Spheres," and are loosely connected short stories showing different relationships between Clark and Bruce and other characters. Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: R
Summary: As Bruce and Clark start to settle into their new life together, they pay a visit to Smallville and Bruce attempts to charm Martha Kent.
Word Count: 3923
This story manages to fulfill the requirements for
worlds_finest monthly challenge of "porn stash"! *wins Shoehorn Award, takes a bow*
Also,
sasha_anu and
damo_in_japan ironed out more wrinkles than usual in this one, so any good effects are probably their doing...
Batman felt the cold and damp of the cave in his bones more than usual as he returned from an evening's work. He had stopped four muggings and a burglary...a slow night, but a satisfying one anyway.
The tumbler needed an oil change and some repairs. Bruce needed some sleep. He hadn't gotten a lot since coming back from the weekend cruise three days ago--playing catchup. He changed from the suit into a gray coverall and got under the car. He could sleep later; the tumbler needed to be ready to go.
An hour or so later, he heard the chirping noise that indicated a new instant message was on his computer. He emerged from underneath the car to find that a muffin and warm mug had appeared near his computer at some point during his work. He wiped some of the oil off his hands and picked up the blue-red-and yellow mug, took a sip, and frowned. Warm milk instead of coffee. Apparently Alfred also felt he needed to get some sleep. The instant message was still flashing.
Mildmannered: Late night?
Bruce yawned and blinked groggily at the message. Apparently Clark was listening in again. He did that a lot lately. It should feel like snooping...but somehow it didn't. "Why are you instant messaging me?" he said out loud. He tapped his ear once, triggering the receiver that let him hear Clark's voice. Nothing.
Mildmannered: It's 8:00, I just got to work like most normal people, dummy, and it would hardly do to be muttering under my breath to myself here constantly.
Bruce took a bite of muffin. "You probably shouldn't be IM-ing at work either."
Mildmannered: I've tried to keep off the channel when you're busy in the evenings, but I miss talking to you.
"I told you, I can't do the routine with you nattering in my ear. You make me smile. It's very annoying."
Mildmannered: It would help if you typed some messages now, you know. I'm just typing to myself here atm.
Bruce rolled his eyes.
Drunkenwastrel: Sorry...I wasn't ignoring you. How's my little sweetie?
Mildmannered: Oh, peachy-keen. Working hard.
"I rather like this setup, actually. I can tell you all the filthy things I plan to do to you next time I see you, while keeping up a stream of unbearably twee IM conversation."
Drunkenwastrel: Have you decided what you're going to wear to the party next week? Something darling, I hope.
Mildmannered: Only the best for you, hon.
Bruce grinned. "I still haven't had you here in the cave. I think getting you bent over the tumbler sounds fun, don't you? All that white skin up against my nice, black car...you'd have to be careful not to dent it when you came, though."
No instant messages, nothing but silence in his ear except for faint, hoarse breathing. Bruce tapped his ear again to prompt the receiver to pick up environmental noise beyond Clark's voice. Now he could hear the office sounds of the Daily Planet, but no keyboard tapping nearby. "Have I rendered you utterly speechless, Clark?"
Mildmannered: You bastard.
Bruce laughed out loud, the laugh segueing abruptly into a yawn.
Mildmannered: You had a late night, you should get some sleep.
Drunkenwastrel: You may have a point.
Mildmannered: After all, you have to be rested to meet my mother tomorrow.
Drunkenwastrel: An *excellent* point. Good night, Clark.
Mildmannered: *kiss*
As Bruce went to type his response, there was a blur of motion behind him and someone was brushing the hair away from the back of his neck to kiss the nape firmly. Bruce turned around, but no one was there now.
Drunkenwastrel: You're crazy, you know. *kisses back*
As he climbed the stairs and headed toward the makeshift apartments, he reset the receiver to hear only Clark's voice again. Even if the man sometimes broke into his sleep by talking in meetings, Bruce found that somehow he slept better with Clark's breath sounding softly in his ear.
But there was no reason to tell Clark that.
: : :
"I still say we could have driven." Clark walked up the stairs to the second floor of the farmhouse, Bruce close behind him.
"I'm not taking days out of my schedule to do some crazy buddy road trip with you, Clark." The staircase was narrow and steep; Bruce was admiring the view. "Besides, I'm not going to risk you getting sick of me, trapped together in a car for so long."
The view turned around abruptly and scooted down two stairs to wrap Bruce up tightly, push him against the flowered wallpaper, and kiss him, tongue caressing and probing delicately, insistently. "Don't be ridiculous. I'll get sick of breathing before I get sick of you." Clark let Bruce go and started back up the stairs again. Bruce looked after him and realized he'd forgotten something. What was it? Something Clark had said...
Oh yes. Breathing. He inhaled shakily and continued to follow Clark.
The farmhouse was empty; Superman and Bruce had touched down in the field behind the house to find Martha Kent's car gone, and Clark had offered to show Bruce around while they waited.
Now Bruce walked into a tiny attic room, the ceiling sloping over his head. There was, as he had been warned, an inordinate amount of plaid. He bumped his head on an X-Wing model hanging from the ceiling as he moved into the room. Clark sat down at the edge of the bed and grinned at him. "You look so totally out of place here, Bruce. It's quite...charming."
Bruce looked down at his "Gotham U." sweatshirt and jeans. "I tried to dress appropriately."
Clark shook his head. "You're a hopeless cause. It's like trying to dress a phoenix up as a parakeet." Bruce snorted and twirled the suspended X-Wing with his finger.
Clark was rummaging through his bedstand. "I didn't take much time to look around last time I was here, in a hurry to get back to Metropolis. Hard to believe it's been five years...it looks exactly the same. Hey, it's my stamp collection!" He looked up to see that Bruce had opened his closet and was poking about in it. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Looking for your porn stash."
"My...my what?"
"Your porn stash." He pried up a corner of the bed to peer between the matress and boxsprings. "Come on, every teenaged boy has a porn stash. I want to know which pictures the magazines fall open to and if they feature handsome, dapper young men or not." He got on his hands and knees to poke about under the bed.
Clark stretched himself out on the bed, his feet lopping over the end now. He crossed his hands behind his head. "You won't find one."
"So it's out in the barn?"
"No, it's not out in the barn."
Bruce sat back on his haunches and shrugged. "I give up, then. Where?"
"I mean I didn't have one, Bruce. I didn't...think about sex a whole lot at that age." Bruce's eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hair. "I didn't! I was worried about other things, you know, like if I was going to start accidentally killing my family with my eyes tomorrow and how I was ever going to hide the fact that I couldn't be cut."
Bruce pulled a pile of old Star Trek novels out from under the bed. "This is the closest thing you've got to porn?"
Clark turned a bit red. "I found them intriguing."
Bruce tossed a book at Clark and glared. "You expect me to believe that as a sixteen-year-old, you weren't obsessed with sex?"
Clark caught the book carefully and grinned. "You're revealing a lot about yourself here, Bruce. I'm just sorry I'll never have the chance to look for your stash." He flipped through the book absent-mindedly, put it on the bedstand, and shrugged. "Maybe I'm a late bloomer. But as a sixteen-year-old...no." His eyes widened somewhat as Bruce got onto the bed with him, straddling his hips, his hands on Clark's chest.
"And now that you're a..." Bruce paused. "How old are you, anyway?"
Clark grimaced. "It gets difficult when you start your life in time-suspended space flight. My parents say I looked about two when I got here. Fifteen years later my father died, then I spent twelve years being tutored at the Fortress, went to Metropolis, spent five months there, then five years in space...that would make me about thirty-five, right?"
Bruce felt rather alarmed. "You're ten years older than me? You don't look it. Don't you age?"
Clark looked uncomfortable. "I spent all but six months of the last seventeen years cut off from human contact, in different kinds of trances. So in terms of lived experience I'm more like eighteen, really."
"Oh, now that's more like it. Hot, barely legal Kryptonian." Bruce leaned in to kiss Clark and the question of Clark's aging slipped by, unanswered. "So anyway, if you didn't think about sex much at sixteen, what about now?" He punctuated the question by thrusting his hips against Clark's rather forcefully, putting his hands on the low-sloping ceiling and pushing himself down, pinning the other man. The bed creaked and Clark's eyes rolled back in his head. He reached out and put his hands on Bruce's hips, tugging him even closer, delicious friction making his interest extremely palpable.
"Bruce," he moaned, "I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes. I think about you all the time, and when we're going to get to do it again, and where and how and for how long next time." His hands were under the sweatshirt now, on bare skin and pulling Bruce down against him. "Is that how it feels for human sixteen-year-old males? I'm not sure I like it. The thinking about it," he amended quickly as Bruce stopped kissing his neck and looked at him. "I'm sure I like the doing it, I'm very sure about that. Just not the...the thinking about your mouth and...all the other parts of you...all the time."
Bruce sniggered and pulled off his sweatshirt, tossing it on the floor. "'All the other parts of me'? Clark, we have to work on your dirty talk. You can't just throw 'fuck' around now and then and think that's a fully developed filthy vocabulary."
"I'm...I'm willing to work on that." Clark's face was flushed as he unbuttoned Bruce's pants and tugged them down. "All right, then, what are the proper ribald terms for this delightful handful I have here?"
He slid his hand in a rubbing motion and Bruce made an incoherent noise. Clark grinned. "Now now, I can hardly say 'I want to lick your rrwrghhh,' can I?"
A door slammed downstairs and footsteps echoed in the kitchen.
Bruce found himself unceremoniously dumped on the floor. "Geez, it's my mother!" hissed Clark. He stared wildly at Bruce, still bare from the waist up and largely bare from the waist down. "You--I'll--" Clark looked around in a panic. Bruce got the distinct impression he had considered picking Bruce up like a large Ken doll and dressing him at super-speed, but had discarded the notion. Bruce felt a vast sense of relief. "I'll stall her!"
Clark galloped down the stairs. Bruce could hear him chattering as he hastily yanked his clothes back on: "Ma! Hi...oh, I missed you too. Oh, I was just showing Bruce my room. He's using the bathroom now, he'll be right down..." Bruce winced and nudged "lying convincingly" above "talking dirty" on the list of skills Clark needed to work on, pausing to flush the toilet in the tiny bathroom before hurrying down the stairs.
He took a deep breath before entering the kitchen, putting on his most charming smile and ingratiating air. Bruce Wayne was nothing if not smooth when he had to be.
Martha Kent turned around as he entered the kitchen, putting a teakettle on the stove. His first impression was of a sort of luminous grace, the elegant face under her nearly transluscent hair dignified yet warm. She looked nothing at all like Bruce's own mother, and yet--
His second impression was of demure amusement, as she put a hand up to cover a smile. She was looking at his chest. Behind her Clark looked like he wanted to sink through the floor. Bruce glanced down at himself.
His sweatshirt was inside out.
Of course it was.
He felt his cheeks flaming out of his control as she raised her eyebrows at him. He had faced down criminals bent on the deaths of millions without quailing, but under the gaze of this one woman he wished he could skulk out of the house and disappear.
Martha Kent removed her hand from her mouth. Her lips still twitching slightly, she said, "I gather all the fashionable young men in the big city are wearing their sweatshirts inside out this season?"
Bruce cleared his throat and grabbed the merciful lifeline. "It's the cutting edge of trendy, ma'am."
"Oh please, call me Martha." Martha stepped forward, taking in Bruce's red cheeks, the way his eyes sought out her son's behind her. Then she swept the playboy up into a hug. Over her shoulder, Bruce could see Clark beaming, and he put his arms around his mother-not-quite-in-law as if she were made of porcelain. "Dear boy," murmured Martha. "It's such a pleasure to meet you." She patted him gently on the back, then released him.
He didn't pull away quite as briskly as he could have.
Martha turned up the heat under the teakettle. "It was so kind of you to invite me to your place for a little while," she said to Bruce as they sat down at the table, Bruce still hunched a bit uncomfortably around his inverted sweatshirt. "It hasn't been too awful, but I wouldn't mind getting away from some questions for a while."
"I'm...sorry. It's my fault you're being subjected to the scrutiny."
Martha smiled. "It's worth it all to see how happy Clark looks." She glanced fondly at her son. "So...you two...came here..." She spoke haltingly, as if overcoming years of reticence.
Clark broke in. "I flew him here, Ma."
The look on Martha's face was an odd mix of relief and chagrin. "I...I just can't get used to talking openly to anyone about it. It's been...it's been nearly twenty years since I lost Jonathan, and there's never been anyone else to...to really talk to..." She smiled bemusedly at Clark. "How nice it must be, dear, to have finally found someone you trust enough to share your secrets."
The teakettle started to whistle, and Martha leapt up to remove it from the heat. Bruce and Clark exchanged glances behind her back. "Anyway, Mr. Wayne--"
"--Bruce, please, Bruce."
"Bruce, then." She threw a smile over her shoulder that made Bruce feel like he had done something very clever. "It was very kind of you to come and meet me here before I went to Gotham. We older folks feel so much more comfortable on familiar ground, you know?" She let the tea steep, then poured it into a mismatched set of cups. "Are you absolutely certain you're willing to have me visit for a little while? We just met, and I don't want to be a bother."
Bruce sipped his tea--done to perfection despite the unorthodox serving method. Alfred would approve. "I'd love to have you," he said, and was surprised to find he meant it.
Martha's eyes were dreamy. "As a little girl, I always dreamed of visiting Gotham, and I never got the chance. It always seemed so...so mysterious and gloomy, like anything could happen there."
"Ma, I never knew that. I always assumed you preferred Metropolis." Clark looked slightly scandalized.
Martha waved a hand. "Oh, Metropolis is lovely, of course. But there's something about Gotham, isn't there?" She smiled at Bruce over her teacup.
Clark looked at the grin plastered on Bruce's face and smiled to himself. Bruce had come here scheming to win over Martha, but something told Clark the tables had been turned. Well, if she was going to go on and on about the wonders of Gotham, this seemed like a good time to bring up certain topics. "Ma, there's something I have to tell you. I've...as Superman, I've been working a lot with Batman." He was going to continue, but the smile on Martha's face disappeared and she sat up straight, her lips compressed in a tight line.
"Why in the world would you be working with that horrible, horrible man?" Clark opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "You have nothing at all in common with him, Clark. He trusts no one, he's all fear and suspicion and darkness...why, his very existence makes a mockery of everything you stand for. He--" Suddenly she caught sight of Bruce's face and broke off, aghast. The teacup slipped from her hand; Clark caught it before it could spill. "Oh dear. Oh...oh dear. You're that horrible man, aren't you?" Bruce smiled, rather more wanly than usual. She put her hand over her mouth again, this time in chagrin. "Of course you are."
She rounded on Clark, her eyes flashing. "Why didn't you stop me?"
Clark flinched. "I did try, Ma."
Martha turned her back on him and put a hand gingerly on Bruce's shoulder. "I am so, so sorry, dear. How thoughtless of me." She patted the shoulder gently. "How did such a nice young man come to dress up as a bat and terrify criminals? I would like very much to understand you...if...if you're willing to talk about it, of course."
Clark had expected that Bruce would give a terse explanation, the bare bones of his life. Instead, he found himself listening, both enthralled and appalled, as Bruce detailed the long path that had led him to this place. Clark had never heard the full story himself; it had been enough for him that Batman was Bruce.
When Bruce detailed his parents' murders, Martha reached her hand around to his other shoulder and tugged him closer, pulling his head to her shoulder. Bruce blinked a couple of times and continued. He described how Alfred had done his best to raise him, his aimless and lonely drifting through high school and college, searching for some kind of meaning, his plan to murder Joe Chill. Clark was grateful he left his animosity toward Superman out of that section. Then the years wandering the world, training his body and his mind, ending in the Himalayas and the enclave of Ra's al-Ghul. When he described how he had chosen not to murder and gained al-Ghul's animosity, Martha hugged his shoulders and murmured, "Good boy." The image of Batman, Dark Knight of Gotham, being called a "good boy" by a Kansas farmer's wife in a kitchen full of bric-a-brac brought a smile to Clark's lips, and he saw it echoed faintly on Bruce's face.
"...and then I met this annoying reporter who insisted on pestering me constantly, and the rest is history."
Clark snorted. Martha let go of Bruce and cleaned off the table, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a napkin when she thought they weren't looking. "Well, it's nice to have someone who actually gives some detail in their stories. As opposed to, 'Hi Ma. Went to Krypton. Nothing there. Gotta run.'" Clark rolled his eyes. "I'll have to get the full story of how you got to know each other some other time, it's getting late. But I'm sure it's equally fascinating, and I'll definitely ask you instead of Clark."
Bruce frowned and continued as if he hadn't wholly been listening to her. "I don't always work within the letter of the law, Mrs. Kent, but I do try to--" He blinked again as Martha threw a dishcloth at him with surprising accuracy.
"You've explained yourself enough for one day, child," she said briskly. "I'm a foolish old woman who should know better than to judge people by their appearances."
Bruce folded the dishcloth carefully, making sure all the edges lined up perfectly, and put it on the table.
After the dishes were done, Superman stood behind the barn with Bruce. "I'll be back for you in a few minutes, Ma." He wrapped the playboy up in red cape and took to the sky.
The whistling wind made normal conversation impossible, but Bruce's voice hummed in Kal's ear. "Your mother is...annoying, Kal."
"Considering 'annoying' is Bat-speak for 'makes me smile,' I will take that as a compliment."
An irritable chuffing noise. "It is apparently my cruel fate to be surrounded by annoying people."
: : :
When Superman returned to Smallville, he found his mother sitting on her suitcase on the hill behind the farmhouse, gazing back toward her home. She was wearing a heavy coat and hot pink earmuffs against the November cold, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them.
She stood up as she saw the red and blue figure in the air above her. Kal touched down in front of her, dried grass bending at his approach. "Your turn, Ma."
She put a hand on his chest. "Wait a moment, Clark." She paused to study his face. "He's good for you," she said softly.
"I'm happy," he answered simply.
His mother shook her head. "No. It's more than that. There's something more."
Clark stood silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "He's...when I'm with him, I'm whole, Ma. No wondering if I'm Clark, or Kal-El, or Superman. I'm...who I am. It all fits together."
Silver tracked down her cheeks. "I had always hoped...that your father and I could do that for you." She rested her head on his chest. "But I'm happy, Clark, and he'd be happy too, that you found someone who could."
Clark put his arms around her and they stood there together for a time. Eventually he felt her shoulders move in a small laugh. "I'm so embarrassed to admit this, dear, but I'm terribly nervous about meeting this Alfred as well. After everything Bruce said about him...he sounds extraordinary."
"He is that."
"I do hope we can get along a little bit."
Clark tipped his mother's head back and wiped the traces of tears from her cheeks. "I'm sure you'll get along famously, Ma."
Martha Kent laughed a little tremulously and adjusted her earmuffs. "Let's get going before I change my mind."
Her son lifted her gently in his arms, and she felt his feet leave the ground, the cold air streaming by them. As she felt Clark begin to descend, she peeked out from the folds of the cape to watch the lights of Gotham glimmer into existence on the horizon. Anything could happen there.
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Notes: Interludes 1-5 are set right after "Music of the Spheres," and are loosely connected short stories showing different relationships between Clark and Bruce and other characters. Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: R
Summary: As Bruce and Clark start to settle into their new life together, they pay a visit to Smallville and Bruce attempts to charm Martha Kent.
Word Count: 3923
This story manages to fulfill the requirements for
worlds_finest monthly challenge of "porn stash"! *wins Shoehorn Award, takes a bow*
Also,
sasha_anu and
damo_in_japan ironed out more wrinkles than usual in this one, so any good effects are probably their doing...
Batman felt the cold and damp of the cave in his bones more than usual as he returned from an evening's work. He had stopped four muggings and a burglary...a slow night, but a satisfying one anyway.
The tumbler needed an oil change and some repairs. Bruce needed some sleep. He hadn't gotten a lot since coming back from the weekend cruise three days ago--playing catchup. He changed from the suit into a gray coverall and got under the car. He could sleep later; the tumbler needed to be ready to go.
An hour or so later, he heard the chirping noise that indicated a new instant message was on his computer. He emerged from underneath the car to find that a muffin and warm mug had appeared near his computer at some point during his work. He wiped some of the oil off his hands and picked up the blue-red-and yellow mug, took a sip, and frowned. Warm milk instead of coffee. Apparently Alfred also felt he needed to get some sleep. The instant message was still flashing.
Mildmannered: Late night?
Bruce yawned and blinked groggily at the message. Apparently Clark was listening in again. He did that a lot lately. It should feel like snooping...but somehow it didn't. "Why are you instant messaging me?" he said out loud. He tapped his ear once, triggering the receiver that let him hear Clark's voice. Nothing.
Mildmannered: It's 8:00, I just got to work like most normal people, dummy, and it would hardly do to be muttering under my breath to myself here constantly.
Bruce took a bite of muffin. "You probably shouldn't be IM-ing at work either."
Mildmannered: I've tried to keep off the channel when you're busy in the evenings, but I miss talking to you.
"I told you, I can't do the routine with you nattering in my ear. You make me smile. It's very annoying."
Mildmannered: It would help if you typed some messages now, you know. I'm just typing to myself here atm.
Bruce rolled his eyes.
Drunkenwastrel: Sorry...I wasn't ignoring you. How's my little sweetie?
Mildmannered: Oh, peachy-keen. Working hard.
"I rather like this setup, actually. I can tell you all the filthy things I plan to do to you next time I see you, while keeping up a stream of unbearably twee IM conversation."
Drunkenwastrel: Have you decided what you're going to wear to the party next week? Something darling, I hope.
Mildmannered: Only the best for you, hon.
Bruce grinned. "I still haven't had you here in the cave. I think getting you bent over the tumbler sounds fun, don't you? All that white skin up against my nice, black car...you'd have to be careful not to dent it when you came, though."
No instant messages, nothing but silence in his ear except for faint, hoarse breathing. Bruce tapped his ear again to prompt the receiver to pick up environmental noise beyond Clark's voice. Now he could hear the office sounds of the Daily Planet, but no keyboard tapping nearby. "Have I rendered you utterly speechless, Clark?"
Mildmannered: You bastard.
Bruce laughed out loud, the laugh segueing abruptly into a yawn.
Mildmannered: You had a late night, you should get some sleep.
Drunkenwastrel: You may have a point.
Mildmannered: After all, you have to be rested to meet my mother tomorrow.
Drunkenwastrel: An *excellent* point. Good night, Clark.
Mildmannered: *kiss*
As Bruce went to type his response, there was a blur of motion behind him and someone was brushing the hair away from the back of his neck to kiss the nape firmly. Bruce turned around, but no one was there now.
Drunkenwastrel: You're crazy, you know. *kisses back*
As he climbed the stairs and headed toward the makeshift apartments, he reset the receiver to hear only Clark's voice again. Even if the man sometimes broke into his sleep by talking in meetings, Bruce found that somehow he slept better with Clark's breath sounding softly in his ear.
But there was no reason to tell Clark that.
: : :
"I still say we could have driven." Clark walked up the stairs to the second floor of the farmhouse, Bruce close behind him.
"I'm not taking days out of my schedule to do some crazy buddy road trip with you, Clark." The staircase was narrow and steep; Bruce was admiring the view. "Besides, I'm not going to risk you getting sick of me, trapped together in a car for so long."
The view turned around abruptly and scooted down two stairs to wrap Bruce up tightly, push him against the flowered wallpaper, and kiss him, tongue caressing and probing delicately, insistently. "Don't be ridiculous. I'll get sick of breathing before I get sick of you." Clark let Bruce go and started back up the stairs again. Bruce looked after him and realized he'd forgotten something. What was it? Something Clark had said...
Oh yes. Breathing. He inhaled shakily and continued to follow Clark.
The farmhouse was empty; Superman and Bruce had touched down in the field behind the house to find Martha Kent's car gone, and Clark had offered to show Bruce around while they waited.
Now Bruce walked into a tiny attic room, the ceiling sloping over his head. There was, as he had been warned, an inordinate amount of plaid. He bumped his head on an X-Wing model hanging from the ceiling as he moved into the room. Clark sat down at the edge of the bed and grinned at him. "You look so totally out of place here, Bruce. It's quite...charming."
Bruce looked down at his "Gotham U." sweatshirt and jeans. "I tried to dress appropriately."
Clark shook his head. "You're a hopeless cause. It's like trying to dress a phoenix up as a parakeet." Bruce snorted and twirled the suspended X-Wing with his finger.
Clark was rummaging through his bedstand. "I didn't take much time to look around last time I was here, in a hurry to get back to Metropolis. Hard to believe it's been five years...it looks exactly the same. Hey, it's my stamp collection!" He looked up to see that Bruce had opened his closet and was poking about in it. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Looking for your porn stash."
"My...my what?"
"Your porn stash." He pried up a corner of the bed to peer between the matress and boxsprings. "Come on, every teenaged boy has a porn stash. I want to know which pictures the magazines fall open to and if they feature handsome, dapper young men or not." He got on his hands and knees to poke about under the bed.
Clark stretched himself out on the bed, his feet lopping over the end now. He crossed his hands behind his head. "You won't find one."
"So it's out in the barn?"
"No, it's not out in the barn."
Bruce sat back on his haunches and shrugged. "I give up, then. Where?"
"I mean I didn't have one, Bruce. I didn't...think about sex a whole lot at that age." Bruce's eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hair. "I didn't! I was worried about other things, you know, like if I was going to start accidentally killing my family with my eyes tomorrow and how I was ever going to hide the fact that I couldn't be cut."
Bruce pulled a pile of old Star Trek novels out from under the bed. "This is the closest thing you've got to porn?"
Clark turned a bit red. "I found them intriguing."
Bruce tossed a book at Clark and glared. "You expect me to believe that as a sixteen-year-old, you weren't obsessed with sex?"
Clark caught the book carefully and grinned. "You're revealing a lot about yourself here, Bruce. I'm just sorry I'll never have the chance to look for your stash." He flipped through the book absent-mindedly, put it on the bedstand, and shrugged. "Maybe I'm a late bloomer. But as a sixteen-year-old...no." His eyes widened somewhat as Bruce got onto the bed with him, straddling his hips, his hands on Clark's chest.
"And now that you're a..." Bruce paused. "How old are you, anyway?"
Clark grimaced. "It gets difficult when you start your life in time-suspended space flight. My parents say I looked about two when I got here. Fifteen years later my father died, then I spent twelve years being tutored at the Fortress, went to Metropolis, spent five months there, then five years in space...that would make me about thirty-five, right?"
Bruce felt rather alarmed. "You're ten years older than me? You don't look it. Don't you age?"
Clark looked uncomfortable. "I spent all but six months of the last seventeen years cut off from human contact, in different kinds of trances. So in terms of lived experience I'm more like eighteen, really."
"Oh, now that's more like it. Hot, barely legal Kryptonian." Bruce leaned in to kiss Clark and the question of Clark's aging slipped by, unanswered. "So anyway, if you didn't think about sex much at sixteen, what about now?" He punctuated the question by thrusting his hips against Clark's rather forcefully, putting his hands on the low-sloping ceiling and pushing himself down, pinning the other man. The bed creaked and Clark's eyes rolled back in his head. He reached out and put his hands on Bruce's hips, tugging him even closer, delicious friction making his interest extremely palpable.
"Bruce," he moaned, "I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes. I think about you all the time, and when we're going to get to do it again, and where and how and for how long next time." His hands were under the sweatshirt now, on bare skin and pulling Bruce down against him. "Is that how it feels for human sixteen-year-old males? I'm not sure I like it. The thinking about it," he amended quickly as Bruce stopped kissing his neck and looked at him. "I'm sure I like the doing it, I'm very sure about that. Just not the...the thinking about your mouth and...all the other parts of you...all the time."
Bruce sniggered and pulled off his sweatshirt, tossing it on the floor. "'All the other parts of me'? Clark, we have to work on your dirty talk. You can't just throw 'fuck' around now and then and think that's a fully developed filthy vocabulary."
"I'm...I'm willing to work on that." Clark's face was flushed as he unbuttoned Bruce's pants and tugged them down. "All right, then, what are the proper ribald terms for this delightful handful I have here?"
He slid his hand in a rubbing motion and Bruce made an incoherent noise. Clark grinned. "Now now, I can hardly say 'I want to lick your rrwrghhh,' can I?"
A door slammed downstairs and footsteps echoed in the kitchen.
Bruce found himself unceremoniously dumped on the floor. "Geez, it's my mother!" hissed Clark. He stared wildly at Bruce, still bare from the waist up and largely bare from the waist down. "You--I'll--" Clark looked around in a panic. Bruce got the distinct impression he had considered picking Bruce up like a large Ken doll and dressing him at super-speed, but had discarded the notion. Bruce felt a vast sense of relief. "I'll stall her!"
Clark galloped down the stairs. Bruce could hear him chattering as he hastily yanked his clothes back on: "Ma! Hi...oh, I missed you too. Oh, I was just showing Bruce my room. He's using the bathroom now, he'll be right down..." Bruce winced and nudged "lying convincingly" above "talking dirty" on the list of skills Clark needed to work on, pausing to flush the toilet in the tiny bathroom before hurrying down the stairs.
He took a deep breath before entering the kitchen, putting on his most charming smile and ingratiating air. Bruce Wayne was nothing if not smooth when he had to be.
Martha Kent turned around as he entered the kitchen, putting a teakettle on the stove. His first impression was of a sort of luminous grace, the elegant face under her nearly transluscent hair dignified yet warm. She looked nothing at all like Bruce's own mother, and yet--
His second impression was of demure amusement, as she put a hand up to cover a smile. She was looking at his chest. Behind her Clark looked like he wanted to sink through the floor. Bruce glanced down at himself.
His sweatshirt was inside out.
Of course it was.
He felt his cheeks flaming out of his control as she raised her eyebrows at him. He had faced down criminals bent on the deaths of millions without quailing, but under the gaze of this one woman he wished he could skulk out of the house and disappear.
Martha Kent removed her hand from her mouth. Her lips still twitching slightly, she said, "I gather all the fashionable young men in the big city are wearing their sweatshirts inside out this season?"
Bruce cleared his throat and grabbed the merciful lifeline. "It's the cutting edge of trendy, ma'am."
"Oh please, call me Martha." Martha stepped forward, taking in Bruce's red cheeks, the way his eyes sought out her son's behind her. Then she swept the playboy up into a hug. Over her shoulder, Bruce could see Clark beaming, and he put his arms around his mother-not-quite-in-law as if she were made of porcelain. "Dear boy," murmured Martha. "It's such a pleasure to meet you." She patted him gently on the back, then released him.
He didn't pull away quite as briskly as he could have.
Martha turned up the heat under the teakettle. "It was so kind of you to invite me to your place for a little while," she said to Bruce as they sat down at the table, Bruce still hunched a bit uncomfortably around his inverted sweatshirt. "It hasn't been too awful, but I wouldn't mind getting away from some questions for a while."
"I'm...sorry. It's my fault you're being subjected to the scrutiny."
Martha smiled. "It's worth it all to see how happy Clark looks." She glanced fondly at her son. "So...you two...came here..." She spoke haltingly, as if overcoming years of reticence.
Clark broke in. "I flew him here, Ma."
The look on Martha's face was an odd mix of relief and chagrin. "I...I just can't get used to talking openly to anyone about it. It's been...it's been nearly twenty years since I lost Jonathan, and there's never been anyone else to...to really talk to..." She smiled bemusedly at Clark. "How nice it must be, dear, to have finally found someone you trust enough to share your secrets."
The teakettle started to whistle, and Martha leapt up to remove it from the heat. Bruce and Clark exchanged glances behind her back. "Anyway, Mr. Wayne--"
"--Bruce, please, Bruce."
"Bruce, then." She threw a smile over her shoulder that made Bruce feel like he had done something very clever. "It was very kind of you to come and meet me here before I went to Gotham. We older folks feel so much more comfortable on familiar ground, you know?" She let the tea steep, then poured it into a mismatched set of cups. "Are you absolutely certain you're willing to have me visit for a little while? We just met, and I don't want to be a bother."
Bruce sipped his tea--done to perfection despite the unorthodox serving method. Alfred would approve. "I'd love to have you," he said, and was surprised to find he meant it.
Martha's eyes were dreamy. "As a little girl, I always dreamed of visiting Gotham, and I never got the chance. It always seemed so...so mysterious and gloomy, like anything could happen there."
"Ma, I never knew that. I always assumed you preferred Metropolis." Clark looked slightly scandalized.
Martha waved a hand. "Oh, Metropolis is lovely, of course. But there's something about Gotham, isn't there?" She smiled at Bruce over her teacup.
Clark looked at the grin plastered on Bruce's face and smiled to himself. Bruce had come here scheming to win over Martha, but something told Clark the tables had been turned. Well, if she was going to go on and on about the wonders of Gotham, this seemed like a good time to bring up certain topics. "Ma, there's something I have to tell you. I've...as Superman, I've been working a lot with Batman." He was going to continue, but the smile on Martha's face disappeared and she sat up straight, her lips compressed in a tight line.
"Why in the world would you be working with that horrible, horrible man?" Clark opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "You have nothing at all in common with him, Clark. He trusts no one, he's all fear and suspicion and darkness...why, his very existence makes a mockery of everything you stand for. He--" Suddenly she caught sight of Bruce's face and broke off, aghast. The teacup slipped from her hand; Clark caught it before it could spill. "Oh dear. Oh...oh dear. You're that horrible man, aren't you?" Bruce smiled, rather more wanly than usual. She put her hand over her mouth again, this time in chagrin. "Of course you are."
She rounded on Clark, her eyes flashing. "Why didn't you stop me?"
Clark flinched. "I did try, Ma."
Martha turned her back on him and put a hand gingerly on Bruce's shoulder. "I am so, so sorry, dear. How thoughtless of me." She patted the shoulder gently. "How did such a nice young man come to dress up as a bat and terrify criminals? I would like very much to understand you...if...if you're willing to talk about it, of course."
Clark had expected that Bruce would give a terse explanation, the bare bones of his life. Instead, he found himself listening, both enthralled and appalled, as Bruce detailed the long path that had led him to this place. Clark had never heard the full story himself; it had been enough for him that Batman was Bruce.
When Bruce detailed his parents' murders, Martha reached her hand around to his other shoulder and tugged him closer, pulling his head to her shoulder. Bruce blinked a couple of times and continued. He described how Alfred had done his best to raise him, his aimless and lonely drifting through high school and college, searching for some kind of meaning, his plan to murder Joe Chill. Clark was grateful he left his animosity toward Superman out of that section. Then the years wandering the world, training his body and his mind, ending in the Himalayas and the enclave of Ra's al-Ghul. When he described how he had chosen not to murder and gained al-Ghul's animosity, Martha hugged his shoulders and murmured, "Good boy." The image of Batman, Dark Knight of Gotham, being called a "good boy" by a Kansas farmer's wife in a kitchen full of bric-a-brac brought a smile to Clark's lips, and he saw it echoed faintly on Bruce's face.
"...and then I met this annoying reporter who insisted on pestering me constantly, and the rest is history."
Clark snorted. Martha let go of Bruce and cleaned off the table, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a napkin when she thought they weren't looking. "Well, it's nice to have someone who actually gives some detail in their stories. As opposed to, 'Hi Ma. Went to Krypton. Nothing there. Gotta run.'" Clark rolled his eyes. "I'll have to get the full story of how you got to know each other some other time, it's getting late. But I'm sure it's equally fascinating, and I'll definitely ask you instead of Clark."
Bruce frowned and continued as if he hadn't wholly been listening to her. "I don't always work within the letter of the law, Mrs. Kent, but I do try to--" He blinked again as Martha threw a dishcloth at him with surprising accuracy.
"You've explained yourself enough for one day, child," she said briskly. "I'm a foolish old woman who should know better than to judge people by their appearances."
Bruce folded the dishcloth carefully, making sure all the edges lined up perfectly, and put it on the table.
After the dishes were done, Superman stood behind the barn with Bruce. "I'll be back for you in a few minutes, Ma." He wrapped the playboy up in red cape and took to the sky.
The whistling wind made normal conversation impossible, but Bruce's voice hummed in Kal's ear. "Your mother is...annoying, Kal."
"Considering 'annoying' is Bat-speak for 'makes me smile,' I will take that as a compliment."
An irritable chuffing noise. "It is apparently my cruel fate to be surrounded by annoying people."
: : :
When Superman returned to Smallville, he found his mother sitting on her suitcase on the hill behind the farmhouse, gazing back toward her home. She was wearing a heavy coat and hot pink earmuffs against the November cold, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them.
She stood up as she saw the red and blue figure in the air above her. Kal touched down in front of her, dried grass bending at his approach. "Your turn, Ma."
She put a hand on his chest. "Wait a moment, Clark." She paused to study his face. "He's good for you," she said softly.
"I'm happy," he answered simply.
His mother shook her head. "No. It's more than that. There's something more."
Clark stood silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "He's...when I'm with him, I'm whole, Ma. No wondering if I'm Clark, or Kal-El, or Superman. I'm...who I am. It all fits together."
Silver tracked down her cheeks. "I had always hoped...that your father and I could do that for you." She rested her head on his chest. "But I'm happy, Clark, and he'd be happy too, that you found someone who could."
Clark put his arms around her and they stood there together for a time. Eventually he felt her shoulders move in a small laugh. "I'm so embarrassed to admit this, dear, but I'm terribly nervous about meeting this Alfred as well. After everything Bruce said about him...he sounds extraordinary."
"He is that."
"I do hope we can get along a little bit."
Clark tipped his mother's head back and wiped the traces of tears from her cheeks. "I'm sure you'll get along famously, Ma."
Martha Kent laughed a little tremulously and adjusted her earmuffs. "Let's get going before I change my mind."
Her son lifted her gently in his arms, and she felt his feet leave the ground, the cold air streaming by them. As she felt Clark begin to descend, she peeked out from the folds of the cape to watch the lights of Gotham glimmer into existence on the horizon. Anything could happen there.