It was summer, and it was only a summer storm. Except that it wasn't. Superman – you're Superman, his brain helpfully supplied – had supercharged the atmosphere when he detonated the collider. He had made the sparks; he had made the rain. He knew that, somehow, but his teeth were rattling so loud it made it hard to think clearly, so he gave up, gave his brain a second to connect the dots, catch up with his body.
"Stupid," a gruff voice said. "Trying to get yourself killed."
Fireworks, Superman's brain insisted. Not the demolition of an alien supercollider. He lay there in the July nighttime, wet green grass under his back, and blinked up at the stars. "It's always clearer," he said, and he meant after a thunderstorm, but Batman didn't seem to hear him.
"Superman," Batman said, then, "Clark." Crouching over him, his fingers fumbled with the clasp on Superman's cape. He was feeling for a pulse, and as soon as his hands touched bare skin a surge of leftover electricity sparked, making Batman shudder but not making him stop. "Follow my movements," Bruce said, and Clark had to watch, had to tell Bruce how many fingers he saw and who the current Robin was. He got the answers right, but Bruce still frowned at him. "Come with me," he said, and Clark stood, stumbling. They walked a few yards to a derelict barn with his arm slung over Batman's shoulder, but he could've done it without the help. Probably.
The barn door opened with a wheezing creak and the smell reminded him of the farm and then Bruce was taking off Superman's cape. He moved to protest but Bruce just shook his head and kept going, until the cape was off and laid out on the barn floor, with Superman unceremoniously dropped upon it. This part of the barn was dry, but half the roof was gone, blown away by a long-ago storm.
Clark's body still thrummed and tingled from the charge. He listened to Bruce speak into his comlink while he stared up at the night sky, the stars twinkling and shimmering, lighting the darkness. "The storm's over," he whispered. And it was, now, simply a scattered and gentle rain, coming from a single, beautiful cloud, silhouetted against the moonlight.
Bruce threw down his comlink, glowering. "It's scrambled," he complained. "You scrambled it, and now I can't call down the Batwing."
"I'll fly you up," Superman said. He tried to stand.
"You're as weak as a kitten." Bruce yanked off his cowl, probably so he could glare harder. Moonlight lit the planes of his face, limning his strong jawline against the indigo sky.
Clark blinked up at him. He could think clearly. He could think just fine. But words didn't want to escape his tingling mouth—they'd forgotten how to travel down from his head to pass through his buzzing lips.
The rain pattered softly on the remnants of roof above them. Bruce dragged a tiny square of cloth from his belt and unfurled it into some kind of microfiber three or four times its original size. He got down next to Clark, and leaned toward Clark, and Clark felt the air between them prickle as Bruce reached toward him, patting his skin dry with the towel. The cloth was soft and Bruce's touch was soft too, dabbing at his face, the bare skin on his neck, the top of his collarbone.
"Nobody knows that about you," Clark said.
Bruce raised an eyebrow at him, eyes sparkling blue in the starlight. "Knows what, Clark?"
"Batman's gentle."
Bruce's lips quirked into the barest of smiles. "Don't let it get out." He dried Clark's hair then, ruffling it a lot less gently, and Clark almost laughed at the defensiveness. Passive aggressive. Was that Bruce Wayne or Batman or the guy in-between? Who'd learned to cover up his feelings like that? He knew the answer, of course. He knew who, and when, and why. It broke his heart a little, sometimes, thinking of the boy Bruce had been. Could have been. "What were you thinking, Clark?" Batman sputtered, breaking that line of thought to bring them both back to this night, this moment.
Clark shrugged, brain going a mile a minute and mouth being stubborn. "Taken worse."
"An electrical charge designed to kill you? Specifically designed to kill you?"
"Means it's Thursday," Clark said, because the bolt must've hit Bruce, too. "Lots of stuff's designed to kill me. Or you, even."
"If you'd just dodged it once more, I could've put my plan into action."
Clark snorted. "You've always got a plan. Doesn't mean I can't fight back while it's on the way. You'd fight back."
Bruce sighed, dropping down beside him. "That's not the point."
"I'm fine."
Bruce wiped at his own face with the cloth, rubbed the back of his neck, then tossed it aside. "I don't think you have any idea how valuable you are. Do you know how much you mean?" His eyes searched Clark's then dropped. "How much you mean to the world? You're… you're everything, Clark."
"To the world." Clark gently slung an arm around Bruce's shoulders. "Bruce…"
"You're shaking even now." Bruce squeezed Clark's arm, then slid off his gauntlets. He touched a warm palm to Clark's forehead, then his cheek. "You're trembling."
"I know." They were very close now and Clark could feel even the air between them trembling but he didn't say it. Instead he took Bruce's hand and placed Bruce's fingers against his lips. "Feel that?"
Bruce went to pull his hand away but Clark held it there a moment, then squeezed it before letting go. They were still sitting close but Bruce did not move away. He seemed frozen in place, and Clark could not stop staring at his mouth.
"I want to kiss you."
"I…" Bruce started, his eyes wider than Clark had ever seen, brilliant blue in the starlight.
"Clark," Bruce said, the softest of a whisper, and Clark closed the space between them, pulling Bruce close until their lips met. It was soft and chaste, closed-mouthed and tender. They pulled apart then, and Bruce studied him, eyes half-lidded and secret.
"Again?"
Bruce nodded, leaning close himself, lips parted as their mouths met again and the kiss turned searing and so dizzying that Clark had to shift his weight, had to say "Wait," and Bruce pulled away, must've thought he didn't want him. He did, though, Clark wanted and so Superman grabbed and dragged him close—and at that, Bruce moaned, and with that, Clark was lost. His whole world shifted, moved, and all he could hear was Bruce's soft, ragged exhale and the thrum of his blood and the beat of his heart.
"Here," Batman said and the word might have been "finally," and for Clark it was, it was everything.