In the past, Clark would occasionally fly to the moon and back, when he wanted to get away from it all, but now, he found himself ranging farther and further, to get some measure of peace.
He forwent Venus, and bypassed Mars, out of respect to J'onn. It did not seem fair, that he could get there when J'onn couldn't. He instead flew to the asteroid belt, visited Jupiter and its many moons, witnessed Saturn and its rings, Uranus and its ice.
It was lonely. It was desolate. It was awesome.
He wasn't sure what he was looking for, that the world, the solar system, the universe was bigger than him and his problems, perhaps, and that he certainly found, but he didn't find something that made him want to rest his head at night and sleep, to sit down at a table and eat.
It did not erase the memory of the last time he had tried to do that, after being served an exquisite meal at Bruce's, that he had only been able to stare at dumbly when it had been placed in front of him, to Alfred's shock and Bruce's barely concealed horror.
He tried to make up for it, by quickly digging in, complimenting the chef, all his usual tricks but it and they were of no use. He had no stories from the Daily Planet to tell anymore. Only tales of devastation and destruction, varying and never-ending from around the globe. He cleaned the dishes that Bruce told him not to clean in his haste to do anything to mitigate the damage, but the damage was already done.
It wasn't as though he was lacking in excuses though, to make a getaway from that place. The world was still calling, despite his failure to save Lex Luthor, and the rest. That he had been forgiven, despite still seeing Lex's eyes, and the strange change of heart they had shown in his last moments.
It wasn't forgiveness, and it wasn't regret, for what he had done. But there was a realization, the one Clark had always hoped to see. That maybe Superman was not the enemy he'd always feared him to be.
But maybe Lex had seen the truth, for all those years. He was killed by a Kryptonian, just as he had always feared he would be. Just as all those who had crossed him had been.
And though he was leaving the Manor, he could still hear there, and it was something he never thought he would hear: Bruce, voice rough with emotion and unshed tears.
"I'm losing him, Alfred."
And Alfred, with all the gentleness of the father he was.
"There, there, Master Bruce. Things are not as bad as all that. You'll see."
A better man would have turned back. Told the world to wait. Reassured his lover, and that is who Bruce was, that he was not losing him, he was only trying to find himself so that when Clark returned, there would be an actual person to interact with, and not the shell of one he had come to be.
But he was afraid.
Afraid that even though Alfred still had faith in him, Bruce would not. That he would not be willing to wait, and was not reassured Clark ever would find himself.
That he was a lost cause.
So he flew on, forward and further and away, proving Bruce's doubts true in the process, Bruce was so often correct.
And he ventured on, willing that all not to be so, back the way he had come in his rocket ship, back to the outer reaches, to Neptune and its wind that made Kansas and the storm that took Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz tame in comparison.
And then something miraculous happened.
He stopped.
He wanted to go no further.
He realized he did not want, and was not ready to go to the next stop in the system, to visit the Underworld, or to pay Charon's toll.
He turned back.
Back to the very place he had fled from. The same place Bruce himself had once had to flee from. That dark, looming, and personally terrifying manor house on the hill. And prayed he would still be welcome, when at the end of his non-stop trip, he finally floated down onto the master suite's balcony under the cover of a moonless night, legs and body tired with a fatigue that was difficult to explain.
It wasn't like kryptonite. It wasn't like the times he had taken a beating, or been slammed into and through concrete. It wasn't even like the desire for sleep, necessarily. He could still move, he could still think, but he was weary. Weary of the walls, weary of the distance.
Wearing of trying to hide things from Bruce, when he should have known better, one could never hide things from Bruce, not for long, and it got worse, when Bruce himself came out to meet him, dressed in black silk pajamas and looking for all the world like he'd seen a ghost, and Clark realized he didn't actually know what day it was, or how long that trip had taken him, but he moved towards him with hesitant steps, that became strides when he saw Bruce step towards him as well, and they met in what could only be called a mess of movement, with a franticness that neither were used to, Bruce's hands pulling and clumsy in his hair and around his waist, and Clark no better, aiming kisses that missed their mark entirely, hitting the corners of Bruce's lips or the bottom of his jaw, and they weren't even standing up straight, so bent over and curled were they around each other, awkward, pained angles to their backs and shoulders, until they eventually, mercifully fell onto the bed, Clark in knots with his cape and Bruce frustrated by the simple tie knot on his pajama bottoms.
Even more frustrated by the buttons on his shirt, and Bruce came dangerously close to just ripping them off, until Clark realized what he was about to do and stopped his hands, and shakily set to the task himself, doing no better of a job than Bruce had, but Bruce was seemingly soothed enough by his attention to slow down, to refrain from destroying any clothing for the time being.
He even left Clark's alone, so he stayed caught up in his cape, as Bruce simply pressed his hands underneath his shirt, to get at the skin he sought, and the feeling of his hands on his stomach, his chest, along his sides was enough to start him panting, He could barely believe it, but it was, and he attempted to regulate himself, until he saw how diminished the electric blue light of Bruce's eyes was, his pupils already dilated, and then he was attempting to stop various whines and whimpers at the sight of them, but at some point, he couldn't find it within himself to care.
His pride being overpowered and overshadowed by something far greater, that he wanted Bruce to know that this was all for him, his racing pulse, his flushed cheeks, the goosebumps and his hair standing on end, and he was so thankful Bruce still wanted him, that he let him be here with him, in his family home, in his bed.
He could have just as easily, and justifiably, reproached him, for showing up here unannounced in the middle of the night but instead he watched with hungry eyes as Clark took on the seemingly impossible challenge of negotiating his belt from the loops that held it in place, and reaching his arm blindly to the side to let it drop to the floor after the struggle he had emerged victorious.
However, he did not stop there. He lifted his hips and gripped the tops of his briefs and his tights, pulling them down and kicking them down his legs with no grace at all, until they got stuck at his boots that he only belatedly realized he still had on, and he was still caught up in his cape, and still, Bruce only watched, eyes roving, particularly at his obvious and now revealed arousal, and Clark let him, let him see everything, as the boots came off and the bunched up tights and briefs followed, after he finally got free of his cape only to get stuck in his shirt, topping off what had to be the least seductive undressing Bruce had ever seen in the bedroom, but instead he was gifted with a low laugh, as first Bruce's own shirt slipped silently and smoothly off his shoulders, no buttons to keep it fastened shut, and his pants slid past his waist, the knot keeping them up unloosened, and the briefs underneath following suit.
Then Bruce's assistance, peeling Clark's shirt up and over his head, just like he did with Clark's t-shirt the very first night they had attempted this, the forested recovery room, a memory that had caused Clark such pain afterwards, but no longer, just as the fear that had clutched at his heart that first night, to lay down, now no longer overwhelmed him.
It was still there, as he laid back on his own, but he fought against it. Did things he never would have normally done. Hooked his knee onto Bruce's shoulder and wrapped his other knee around his waist, binding them together and locking him in, and he was prepared for Bruce to flip the tables, to maneuver out of that cage but he did not, only caressed his legs in a way that quickly made them go weak and start to shake, until Bruce pulled them down and away, back to rest on the bed, but that defeated the point of his gesture, so Clark raised his hips, willing Bruce to understand that he was offering, baring himself before him, that they would not need to go through the elaborate dance they usually did when they did this.
That Clark was inviting, surrendering, in hopes that Bruce would still see value in what he had to give, that he could have even an inkling of how much Clark adored him, and even though he moaned and squirmed and curled in on himself as tightly as he always did, with Bruce's fingers inside and Bruce nuzzling his neck, he didn't want anything between them, he didn't ever want anything between them.
Enough so that when Bruce withdrew and was reaching for a condom, he told him that wasn't necessary, that he didn't want it, and somehow with that, it was like uncorking a bottle, everything he'd wanted to say to him before this but hadn't had the nerve, that he was sorry, so sorry that he'd been away so long, too long, to please give him another chance, that he loved him so much he could barely stand it, it all came pouring out, that Bruce continually amazed him, he wanted to build a life together and was there any chance Bruce wanted the same.
And Bruce's answer was to let go of the latex and a simple affirmative, but, and it took Clark a moment to realize, that affirmative was spoken in Kryptonian, causing Clark to echo back in kind, and he wasn't sure what he was questioning more, the response or the language it was spoken in.
Yet he only got the same answer and nothing further, at least with words, because Bruce was also painfully aroused and the moment could not linger, so their bodies spoke instead, limbs and hands intertwined, breathing in tandem, then the throbbing heat of Bruce himself, with nothing in between them, and a rhythm that was neither fast nor slow, with a pressure that was neither gentle nor frenzied, and when Bruce dipped his head down to kiss him, right before he came, and afterwards, the movement of his hips not entirely ceasing, just carrying on creating such a profoundly sensitive sensation within that he began to cry into the kissing that had also not ceased, it was everything he had ever hoped making love with Bruce could be.
They ended up together in the bathtub Bruce rarely used. It was a little past the devil's hour, but neither of them felt much like sleeping, and fortunately, it was large enough to fit the two of them, Clark leaning against one end, and Bruce the other, legs bunched and pretzeled somewhere in the middle. The urge to touch abated and satiated, at least for the time being.
He still didn't understand how this had happened. Clark looking at once both impossibly innocent, large blue eyes made bluer by the water and the surrounding tiles, beaming a stunned and stunning smile that matched how Bruce felt about this internally, and wise beyond his years, that he had travelled far and seen much.
And he simply listened, as Clark told him about his latest travels. Infinite blackness and the giant glowing orbs held and suspended in it, and the smaller orbs held and suspended around those, and the immense star in the center that held all of it in place. The inexplicableness of what bodies had been drawn together, and which had been pulled apart.
The same could be said of people. What gravity was it that drew and held some together, and what gravity was it that pulled them apart.
It was not something he thought about often. His focus so much on the mundane the earthbound, as it were. His mind filled with the annals and analyses of crime, of psychology, of the way Gotham's streets intersected and directed her human occupants, of armor and weapons that would allow him to fight her darkness, of technology that would allow him to see when there was no light, hear when there was no sound, enter and exit when there were no doors.
But Clark was not him. Clark was a wanderer, an alien from somewhere else, so he listened to his tales of the spheres and the stars, accepted the astonishing souvenirs Clark promised were in the works – rocks from the Moon and Mercury, for the man who has everything – and accepted that he would not be able to keep this man from the heavens, just as Clark would not be able to keep Bruce from the night.
Suggested to Clark that astronomers might also have interest in those, that perhaps he could team up with them, as he travelled, and Clark smiled, said that his parents would like that.
Clark also shared that he'd thought of getting a farm of his own, that his other parents would like that, and he'd like that too, to feel closer with them.
The look when Bruce said he'd buy him one was priceless.
And then the urge to touch was no longer satiated, no longer abated, and he moved forward, found Clark's hips underwater, found his lips above, smiled when Clark whispered thank you.
Sleep eventually claimed them, and the sun eventually woke them. Clark was no longer ensconced next to him in the sheets but curled up alongside him. Which Bruce would never admit he enjoyed as well.
"I'm assuming you're staying for breakfast?" Bruce inquired, his voice more relaxed than he was used to hearing it after Clark's eyes opened, and Clark after barely raising his head to look at the clock, replied.
"I think Alfred would probably call it brunch, at this time of day."
Bruce was convinced Clark was asleep during he and Alfred's first discussion about that, so he could only assume it was from knowing Alfred so well that Clark made his deduction, and that gave Bruce more pleasure than he'd been expecting.
That Clark had paid attention to and taken a genuine interest in his butler.
Who was and wasn't really his butler.
And the next piece Clark added warmed his heart even further, said more gently than the first.
"I'd like that though. To stay."
He got to witness the absurdity that was Clark shaving.
"It's either this or a massive beard." Clark explained, as he ricocheted his heat vision from the mirror back towards himself, and the result was admittedly, enviably smooth.
In lieu of having Superman come down to brunch, Bruce, to his immense satisfaction, lent him some of his clothes, since none of Clark's usual offensive wardrobe was available to him. They fit well enough, but Clark would need to start storing some things at the Manor.
Another change was that Clark did not linger on the way down to the kitchen, to stare up at the painting of his parents. A mere glance, and a happy one at that.
And a terribly, wonderfully happy greeting to Alfred, when they finally arrived in the kitchen, fashionably late in his own home.
Alfred was used to that, of course.
And he had been right earlier as well, in Bruce's moment of doubt.
Things had not been as bad as they had seemed.
Things had in fact worked out better than he ever could have expected. In a way that if he were a different sort of person, he might have called miraculous.
Alfred was happy too. Not as beaming as Clark, but who was. But Bruce knew this was something Alfred had pretty much given up on. Bruce having any sort of domestic partner, and certainly this is never who he'd envisioned, yet here they were.
The three of them sitting around the small table in the kitchen, the one he'd sat at with his parents, when they were still alive, the one he'd sat at with Dick, when he was a boy.
Clark had said to him, in all seriousness, that he felt like the happiest man in the world, when Bruce had come back to him. Bruce could never honestly say he was the happiest man in the world, but as he'd said to Clark in the library, during that fateful storm, he was blessed in many ways, and whether one wanted to call it divine intervention, fate, or simple good luck, he had no better explanation for Clark's presence in his life, and he felt blessed once again, that this time Clark had come back to him, that Clark had come to Earth at all, and he could never totally make peace with this, he could not say he agreed with the cosmic math, that this somehow balanced out, just as he could never quite make peace that the reason he had saved so many lives as Batman was because his parents had lost theirs, but he could not argue that Krypton's demise had given Earth one of her greatest heroes, and had personally given him someone who eluded labels, but suffice it to say someone whom he loved deeply, and to his amazement, someone who loved him deeply in return.
The road ahead was not going to be smooth. He knew that. Clark knew that. Alfred knew that. Even the skin that Clark had so miraculously smoothed was acquiring new scars. Bruce was loathe to say it was a new Kryptonian power. How many could they possibly have? Also, Clark had never been able to recreate it, whether in a healing fashion, or the destructive telepathy of Zod's.
So instead, Bruce had turned to the records, the ones Clark had finally given him access to, yet just like Clark, he had found nothing definitive. Only hints and allusions. The magic of days long gone by, that the modern age could not determine whether were fact or fiction, lore or legend. Only hypotheses. Mysteries. But as he had found out for himself, not all mysteries were bad. And who knows, maybe it would happen again, Clark being able to heal him.
Since they had chosen.
They were going to walk ahead together, so he would enjoy, as best as he was able, this temporary reprieve, this wake of relative calm, before Clark donned his cape, and Bruce his cowl, and he would be fortified by it, when he was out haunting the demons.
Because Alfred would be here, his rock and his sanctuary, just as he always had been, but there was now someone else. Someone whom he had fought beside in the past, but would now fight for in a different way.
Clark would be a guiding light – just as he was a guiding light for so many – illuminating both the path, and being his personal destination.
Someone he would fight with nail and tooth and claw to return to.
To come home to, and to provide a home for in return.
Finito