The initial navigation of whatever they were was not entirely uncomplicated.
They kept it, through wordless agreement, secret and usually only met at either of their homes.
In the beginning, Kent seemed to reset between every time they saw each other, and then slowly faded from bumbling incompetence, to sharp reporter, and finally to something that Bruce was suspecting was the man himself.
Bruce, on the other hand, spent the time apart reminding himself that it was idiotic, short-sighted, and selfish of him to involve Kent in his life. And yet, every time they met and Bruce attempted to do something to deliberately put Clark off him… he found his words catching, his body betraying him, and Clark luring genuine responses from underneath his façade.
They had sex a lot.
It was the ice-breaker of their relationship. Naked and panting they would fall back from each other and onto the bed of choice – usually Bruce's – and unfailingly begin to talk. About themselves, about the world, about their jobs; Clark Kent, Bruce was finding, was an excellent conversationalist.
They fell into a routine, more domestic than anything Bruce had come to expect from life.
More enjoyable.
Alfred and Clark got on spectacularly. Bruce and Clark both found days where they didn't have to work from the office. Though his work often kept him late, Clark soon spent more nights at the manor than away from it. Even Batman slotted in relatively well. There were nights Bruce had to create excuses, but faced with this new motivation he had found himself becoming ruthlessly efficient and returned earlier than he ever had.
It took months for the first problems to truly appear.
And then it quickly became a pattern.
"Would you like to talk about it?" Clark asked, fingertips still playing gently at the purple edges of a bruise.
Bruce looked at Clark, who would not meet his eyes.
Bruce knew Clark – better than he had expected to know anyone new at this stage of his life – and he knew that, though Clark normally didn't have a problem with tackling an issue head on, for some reason he never pushed on this.
Never forced him to share his secrets.
So Bruce said: "No, I don't, Clark," and watched the flicker of disappointment in Clark's eyes.
It was the rift that he had known would always come; the first and final wedge between them. They had never been built to last, and Bruce had known it from the start. It was the reason he had given himself leave to begin something in the first place.
Clark interrupted his thoughts, voice cheery if somewhat strained. "Okay, then. Want to hear who Lois managed to piss off today?"
And Bruce forgot what he knew, had always known.
Again and again, he forgot.