A/N: Just a shortie this time, hope you enjoy.
~Chapter Four~
When they met up in the Metropolis shopping district, Clark couldn't stop himself from smiling. He was grinning when Bruce walked up to him on the sidewalk, kept smiling as he said hello and stayed that way while they headed towards a cluster of jewelry stores on 2nd Street. Bruce tried to follow suit.
"How's the arm?" Clark asked.
"Fine." Well, his definition of fine. He'd ditched the sling but kept his hand tucked in his jacket pocket so he didn't have to use it much. Clark saw right through that, but withheld comment. Mostly because he had his face pressed up against a glass window. "See something you like?"
"Gold? White gold? Platinum?" Clark spun around and grabbed Bruce's good arm. "Help me. There's like six different diamond shapes and I don't know what any of them mean. I thought more stones was better, but apparently that's not 'modern.' Tell me you can decipher all this."
"Go with something classic." Bruce swept open the door and opened his hands across the jewelry case. The pretty little shopgirl (definitely the idiot one—she smiled like that head was full of air and he knew those breasts were all silicon) tried to take over for her commission but he shooed her away. "Like an asscher, emerald, or oval cut. And Lois seems like a platinum kind of girl. She wears a lot of purple and black."
"That narrows it down by half." Clark surveyed the display case, with an expression equal parts baffled and overwhelmed.
"Three stones is a nice look." He pointed to a particularly beautiful one—slim and with an emerald cut diamond and two smaller circle ones. It would look great on Lois's slim fingers and wouldn't get in the way of her writing. Clark smiled at it and Bruce hated him for it just a little bit.
"That's a pretty one." He was practically making nose prints on the glass. "So, does this mean jewelry knowledge is one of those things rich kids get inherently, like piano playing?"
Bruce chuckled to avoid the question. Clark asked the saleslady to show him the row of platinum rings. He picked each one up, examining it and asking Bruce questions that he didn't wait for responses to. All Bruce did was step back and occasionally murmur something like "It's nice" or "That looks like Lois." And he thought that girls were supposed to go marriage-crazy.
After about half an hour of it, Clark told the saleslady he'd think about it. They repeated the ritual at three more stores and then Bruce suggested they stop for lunch because he was sick of rings.
"I want it to be just right," Clark said, over plates of pasta. Bruce had to agree—Clark was being one picky sonofabitch. Then Clark's eyes went down to his plate. "And they're damned expensive. It had better be right."
"I could—" Bruce began.
"You are not, I repeat not, going to help me in any way to pay for my girlfriend's engagement ring." Clark pointed his fork at Bruce. "Over my dead body."
Bruce shrugged and dug into his spinach tortellini. Clark ate in silence for a few minutes, devouring his spaghetti and meatballs like a good farmboy. then looked at Bruce again. "Well, we've spent the morning talking about my love life—how's it been going since you and Diana stopped doing your thing? Are you back with Selina?"
"No." His appetite suddenly vanished. He pushed the tortellini around in the sauce. "I don't think I'm going to go back to that."
Clark rolled his eyes. "The novelty's worn off?"
"It'll never work out," Bruce replied. "It was just a flirtation. Its not like I was ever going to have a serious relationship with her."
"I didn't think you were interested in a serious relationship," Clark noted through a mouthful of gluten and tomato, then smiled. That was not a good thing, not in this conversation. "Is there someone who's made you rethink your stance on long term relationships?"
"What?" Good god. How on earth did they get here? His brain was screaming 'Abort! Abort! Abort!" like a self-destruct alarm. It felt like his heart had fallen into his stomach.
Clark shoved his plate to the side and leaned in on the table. "There is, isn't there?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Bruce shoved a piece of pasta in his mouth in the hopes that Clark would start back in on his own meal.
"I can hear your heartbeat, you know." Clark's grin widened. Bruce stared down at the table. "And it's rising."
"You're crazy." He felt himself start to sweat, and hid his hands in his lap in case they started shaking. "If you want romantic intrigue, go borrow one of Shayera's Harlequin romances."
"I don't know why you're being cagey about this," Clark said, with a raised eyebrow like Bruce was the most ridiculous person he knew. "She can't possibly be worse than Talia."
"Talia was perfectly fine." Bruce split another pasta with the side of his fork and speared it but his appetite was definitely gone. "It was her father that was the problem."
"Right. So you don't remember when you're daddy-issues girlfriend broke into your cave and stole your top-secret plans to disable us should we ever go rogue?" Clark rolled his eyes again. "Because I recall my skin being turned translucent by a kryptonite isotope you created."
"That—" Bruce suddenly felt the need to defend himself, even though he was so desperately glad that the conversation had turned away from his current love life to his former one. "—was quite a long time ago."
"You seem to have a habit of getting into the most difficult relationships possible," Clark said. "Reformed kleptomaniacs, domestic terrorists, suspicious reporters—I think you're a danger junkie."
Bruce settled for signaling for the check and giving Clark what Wally called "The Patented Batglare." Clark didn't say anything else, but he kept that annoying smile on.
