Clark stepped out of the teleporter beam and wished, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that Bruce would invest some of that fortune of his into decent lighting for the Cave. Even with his quite extraordinary sense, it still took his eyes a minute to adjust to the dimness. Finally, he picked out Bruce, perched on his chair in front of the Batcomputer, the cape and cowl discarded on the floor.

"What are you doing?" Clark asked, before he saw the blood sparkling on the floor.

"Don't give me that look; it's not that bad." Bruce pulled another stitch through his arm, and Clark tried not to give into the impulse to discover whether he was doing it with or without anesthesia. Instead, he just sat down in the chair next to Bruce's and tried, truly, to bite his tongue.

"Why are you stitching yourself up?" He was, as usual, unsuccessful. The cut ran from halfway down Bruce's forearm to the crook of his elbow. A knife wound, a deep one. Someone had gotten lucky and slipped in between two armor plates.

"Alfred's out. Would you prefer I let myself bleed?" Bruce snapped, trying to sound self-righteous, but it came across as tired and stressed.

"I'd prefer it if you had no need to get stitched up." Clark x-rayed him and felt mildly better that the knife hadn't gotten anywhere close to the bone.

Bruce sighed, right on cue (they'd had this conversation time and again, though neither put a stop to it). "I don't get all mothery with you when Luthor gives you kryptonite poisoning."

"I'm not mothering. I'm allowed to care about you. That's kind of the point of a relationship." He reached over and took the curved needle out of Bruce's hand. The last of the stitches were done fast enough that Bruce wouldn't feel much. This would leave a scar, albeit a thin one. Clark focused on tying off the thread so he could stop calculating these things. The blood on the floor had dried, so instead he concentrated on the fresh blood staining Bruce's skin.

"I really hate it when you do that," Bruce said.

"Do what?"

"Wrinkle you eyebrows like that. You're imaging all the horrible ways I could die, and it dries me nuts." Bruce pulled his hand back and wrapped a bandage around the fresh stitches. He did it quickly and efficiently, barely even looking at what he was doing.

"I just don't like seeing you hurt." Clark did not mention that he had, indeed, been imagining what new hell it would be to have to go to Bruce's funeral. "I—"

Bruce leaned forward and kissed him, cutting off whatever he was going to say. Clark's train of thought departed without him.

"I'm exhausted," Bruce said, when he pulled away, "and I don't want to have a conversation about morality right now. I want to get some Italian food delivered, have a hot shower, and then get into bed with you. Okay?"

"Sounds good to me," Clark replied, and that was all the coaxing he needed to abandon their previous conversation.