Clark didn't go home for the night. He went back in the morning, half expecting that Brucie would be gone. That expectation was thinly laced with hope. It was a cowardly thought. He had a speech prepared for his apology.
It turned out that Brucie had already replaced his damaged front door. Clark sighed and turned the knob, which was again perfectly round. His push did not produce any odd squeaky sounds.
"Good morning." Brucie placed a copy of the Daily Planet at his seat. The newspaper was a finishing touch to the elaborate English breakfast set on the table. It was oddly like seeing Bruce assume Alfred's job.
Clark should have anticipated this confrontation. Brucie wouldn't run away. Clark shouldn't. He should look Brucie in the eye and apologize. Clark cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry I ran away yesterday. It was incredibly cowardly of me." Clark began, rubbing his palms together nervously. "I don't have any excuses for what I've done… and what I've tried to do. I understand if you don't forgive me, if you want to report me, or if you want to leave." He kept his eyes on Brucie's expression, but the robot's face was unreadable.
At last, Brucie's gaze dropped onto the dishes. "There is nothing to forgive. I don't want to leave."
Clark sighed. Brucie wouldn't understand, not without an explanation. "I'm nothing short of a criminal." He pressed, feeling like one already. "In the human world, there is a term for what I attempted, and it's called a sexual assault. I go one step further, and it's called... it's called rape. It's prosecutable."
"It's not an assault if I was a willing participant." Bruce shot back at him.
"You were not." Clark frowned.
"You don't know that. You can't force me to report you to the police. You can't surrender yourself to them and expect me to agree with you." Brucie's voice softened a fraction. "I was willing. I was just caught off guard."
"You weren't willing." Clark insisted, feeling a little frustrated. A prosecution seemed a rightful ending, following his sense of justice. "I could tell-"
"You couldn't." Brucie interrupted sternly. "You weren't even sure I had feelings." His voice turned gentle. "But I do, and while my consent remained unvoiced, I wanted you. I still do."
This was definitely not headed the route Clark imagined. His fingers clenched in exasperation. "I've said again and again-"
"That you're in love with someone else? That you'd never love me? I know." Brucie countered swiftly. His nonchalant brush off somehow aligned with his claim.
"Then-"
"I said it doesn't matter. If you dismiss my answer because I'm a robot, you're dismissing everything I say and everything I do. You're discriminating against me and considering me inferior. You are inadvertently saying that I am incapable of rational, independent thinking. There is nothing more insulting that you can say to me."
Clark stopped short of a reply and bit his tongue. He had no idea how to counter that argument.
"Sit." Brucie pointed at Clark's chair on one end of the table. It was the most demanding tone he had ever used with Clark. "Your breakfast is getting cold."
Clark walked to his chair obediently and sat down with a thump. He didn't deserve the domestic bliss that Brucie was constructing around him. Guilt ate at him like a corrosive acid. He was chewing, not tasting, the bacon in his mouth when Brucie said something that made him drop his fork.
"We can have a friends with benefits arrangement."
Clark looked up unblinkingly, feeling his thoughts come to a halt. He did not envision any of this happening before he came back home. For one, he was expecting Brucie to cut him open with his laser vision.
Brucie was looking at him from across the table. His smile was misleadingly of amusement. "It's a solution for both of us."
Clark stabbed at his fried eggs and watched the runny yolk spread across his plate. He felt sick to the bone. "Sex is never a solution."
"I relieve you of sexual frustration, and you grant me sexual fulfilment."
"Fulfilment." Clark repeated emptily. "You're not in love with me. You don't love me."
"There you go again." Brucie peered at him through narrowed eyes. "That presumptuous accusation."
"I don't mean it like that and you know it." Clark backed away, leaning flush against his chair. He stared at his food. "What you have is an infatuation. You have no one for comparison. If you've lived with, say, my next door neighbor, you'd have fallen for him all the same."
"Your next door neighbor doesn't have five million to spend." Brucie pointed out with a smirk.
"Well, neither do I." Clark picked up the copy of the Daily Planet and waved it in frustration. "I do this for a living."
"And saving the world, I suppose." Brucie grinned slyly. "Is it so unbelievable that one would fall for the world's strongest superhero?"
Clark blinked slowly and paused mid-debate.
"The closet was open when you left in a hurry." Brucie explained. He jumped straight to his next argument while Clark slowly processed that fact. "I can assure you that sex with you can be without emotional ties. That is possible regardless of my emotional predisposition. I can shut emotions down whenever I like." He lied.
Clark pushed away his plate in a sudden bout of repulsion. "This is not up for discussion."
"I will be waiting for you when you come home tonight." Brucie said quietly.
"I don't-" Clark shook his head in rejection. He changed into his work jacket in super speed. Then he picked up his briefcase and headed for the door. "It's not up for discussion," he repeated sternly.
"I'll be waiting." Brucie's answer was equally stubborn.
Clark was determined to prove him wrong. That was what he thought when he stepped out the door. That was still what he thought when he entered the lift at the Daily Planet. When he muddled through the day, writing about WayneTech's AI. When he called Bruce for lunch, but reached his voice message. When Bruce didn't call back. It was still what he thought when he pushed open his bedroom door at eight o'clock. When Brucie welcomed him home with his alluring naked body.
So it was more than frustration that hit Clark, when he proved himself wrong twelve hours later.