Mithen

Fic: A Moment at the Old Brandybuck Fishing Hole (Thorin/Bilbo)

2019-06-04T00:00:08Z

A Moment at the Old Brandybuck Fishing Hole (454 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield
Additional Tags: Fluff, Fishing, Established Relationship
Summary: Former King Under the Mountain Thorin Oakinshield isn't sure what the point of fishing is, but he's happy to spend an afternoon with Bilbo Baggins.

Note: Happy birthday to starsandsea! I hope it was full of everything that makes you happy...

“This seems very inefficient.”

Bilbo didn’t look up from his work, but Thorin could see the side of his mouth curve in a smile. “How do dwarves like to fish?”

“Generally from boats, and with large, weighted nets. Though not many dwarves like to work from boats,” Thorin admitted. A cloud of gnats chose that moment to gather around his head and he had to take some time to shoo them away.

“Rather like hobbits in that regard.” Bilbo peered closely at the glittering material in his hands, catching the sun. “But we do like to fish.”

“I just don’t see the point in catching fish <i>one at a time,</i>” Thorin complained. “What exactly are you doing?”

“Getting the lure ready.” Bilbo held up the hook with a spoon-shaped piece of metal attached to it. “It’s supposed to look like a small fish, to trick the bigger fish into biting.”

Thorin frowned. “It should be segmented or hinged, so that it moves more like a real fish. Wriggling. I’m sure I could improve on that.”

“I’m sure you could,” Bilbo said, getting his pole ready. He settled down on the mossy riverbank and lowered the lure into the brook, where the water was more still. “Maybe next time.”

Thorin sat down next to him and waited for something to happen. The sound of the brook was a gentle constant gurgle, and the sun filtered through the broad bright beech leaves to touch the water with gold. Water striders came and went on the eddies. Bilbo sat and looked at the water, and Thorin looked at Bilbo.

“This isn’t terribly exciting,” Thorin said after a while.

“That’s kind of the point,” Bilbo said.

“Hm,” Thorin said, considering that.

A bird trilled from the trees. The wind up picked for a moment and Thorin could hear a few acorns pattering to the ground.

“There are a dozen other things I could be doing,” Thorin said.

“But you’re not,” Bilbo said placidly. “You’re here with me.”

Thorin lay down on the velvety moss, gazing up at the shifting leaves. The sky beyond was a deep clear lapis, brighter than any jewel. It was quiet except for the sound of the water and the wind.

After a moment Bilbo shifted over a bit so Thorin could put his head in his lap. Shifting to hold his fishing pole with one hand, he started to run his free hand through Thorin’s hair. It was remarkably relaxing.

“So what exactly are you hoping to catch today?” Thorin eventually asked through a yawn.

He heard laughter glint in Bilbo’s voice, under his words, like a silvery fish in deep water.

“Oh, I’ve already caught what I was hoping for,” Bilbo said.

Fic: A Wedding-Day Conversation (for HeraldofManwe!)

2018-06-04T13:55:27Z

A Wedding-Day Conversation (977 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel
Characters: Celebrían (Tolkien), Glorfindel (Tolkien)
Additional Tags: Weddings, Conversations, Friendship
Summary: On her wedding day, Celebrian has an unexpected visit from Glorfindel.

Note: a birthday fic for heraldofmanwe! As always, it's a pleasure and an honor to have a chance to read your stories and be your friend.

Ficlet: Absinthe and Lethe (Bruce & Diana)

2017-10-07T11:06:36Z

Absinthe and Lethe (703 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DC Cinematic Universe, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman (2017)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Wonder Woman
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)
Additional Tags: Implied Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne - Freeform, past Diana/Steve Trevor, Grief/Mourning, Friendship
Notes: For ilovetobefree's birthday! I hope your day has been joyous and your year will be great!
Summary:

On the first anniversary of Superman's death, Diana and Bruce share a drink in France and take a walk into what used to be No Man's Land.

Ficlet: Blackberries in the Sun (Wonder Woman: Diana & Antiope)

2017-09-27T10:54:14Z

Blackberries in the Sun (671 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Wonder Woman (2017)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Antiope (Wonder Woman), Diana (Wonder Woman)
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Reflection, Family
Summary: On her way to the day's training session, Antiope thinks about her niece's destiny.
Note: For bradygirl_12's birthday! May your special day and every day be filled with happiness!

FIC: Batman Saves His Sidekick and the Day! (also Superman is there)

2017-09-21T23:50:16Z

Batman Saves His Sidekick and the Day! (also Superman is there) (1869 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson
Additional Tags: Friendship, Humor
Summary:

When LEGO Batman's ward decides to return the Phantom Zone Projector to the Fortress of Solitude, Batman is forced to ask Superman for a little help.

Fic: I'll Show You a Silver Rose (Clark/Bruce Big Bang Fic)

2017-06-24T00:20:39Z

I'll Show You a Silver Rose (8295 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Flirting, Phantom Zone, doppleganger
Summary:

When Clark is trapped in the Phantom Zone, he can only watch in horror as Bruce interacts with the shapeshifter that has taken his place.

Fic: Scout's Honor (Clark/Bruce; Music of the Spheres)

2017-06-04T13:37:07Z

Scout's Honor (4180 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Superman Returns (2006), Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Richard White, Jason White
Additional Tags: Hiking, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Series: Part 3 of Music of the Spheres
Note: A birthday gift for starsandsea! I hope it was wonderful!
Summary:

Jason White goes for a hiking trip with his father Richard and family friends Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne.

Fic: Undercover (Clark/Bruce)

2017-04-12T07:18:53Z

Undercover (7126 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Undercover, Investigations, Flirting, Banter
Summary:

Clark and Bruce keep running into each other while in various disguises for separate investigations.

Note: It looks like I'll be cutting back even more here on LJ. I won't be deleting unless forced to and I'll probably still post links, but most active posting will take place on AO3 or on Dreamwidth. I'm not happy about it, but there it is...

FIC: When in Rome (DC Comics, Clark/Bruce)

2017-02-09T12:08:48Z

When in Rome (4021 words) by Mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Public Sex, Orgy, First Time
Summary:

Superman and Batman are invited to a grand celebration in honor of negotiating a peace treaty on an alien planet. As it turns out, however, this planet's customs for such celebrations are a little different from Terran ones.

“We can never thank you enough, honored heroes. Your help in bringing about peace after so many decades of war is truly--” High Chancellor Dheaeval’s long, dark fingers fluttered in the air between her and Superman as if attempting to express the ineffable.

“Batman and I can’t take that much of the credit, High Chancellor,” Clark said. “It was your people’s desire to achieve an end to the hostilities that made the difference.”

“But you traveled across the galaxy to mediate, to help us find common ground at last. We can never, never repay our debt to you.”

“Seeing your planet at peace is the only repayment we could desire,” Bruce said smoothly, executing a perfectly-calibrated Aehtaeasean bow, complete with exquisitely proper finger motions. Clark stared at him in some envy--he’d never quite managed to get the bow correct during the week they’d been on Aehtaeas, and the frustration had dogged him through the peace proceedings. On the plus side, the giggles from both sides as he’d struggled with the form had broken the ice and provided a source of shared merriment among the old foes, so Clark couldn’t regret it that much.

He hoped Bruce thought he’d been doing it on purpose.

“You will, I hope, do us the honor of participating in the lielthal tonight?” Dheaeval asked. “There will be songs, and food, and all the usual revelries to celebrate such a momentous occasion. Your presence would be a constant visual reminder of our new peace and the burgeoning union of our peoples.”

Later, Clark would realize that what he had taken to be accidental innuendo was anything but. At the time, however, he smiled and said “Of course we would be honored to attend, High Chancellor.”

Bruce pulled a sour face as Dheaeval moved away to spread the good news that the alien ambassadors would be attending the lielthal. “Thanks a lot,” he muttered. “As if I don’t have to attend enough pointless parties on Earth.”

“Oh come on,” Clark said. “Don’t be a grouchy old fogey. At least this one is a celebration of the end of a war. You don’t get to attend those kinds of parties every day.”

Bruce looked thoughtful for a second, then smiled: a slow, thoughtful smile that made Clark’s heart turn over oddly. “I suppose,” he said. “But don’t blame me when you end up bored to tears.”

“I’m sure it won’t be boring,” Clark said. Because you’ll be there, he wanted to add, but resisted the temptation.

“It’s a diplomatic dinner,” Bruce sighed. “They’re required by galactic law to be boring.”

As it turned out, it was anything but boring.

“What in the world--” Clark lifted the cloth from the box, staring in some astonishment at the shifting, silky fabric.

“Are the colors unright, sir?” The Aehtaeasean messenger looked concerned, tilting his head to the side, ears twitching.

“No, they’re perfect.” And they were exactly the right shades of blue, red, and yellow. “But--” He looked up and met Bruce’s amused gaze, which fairly shouted: Who’s the old fogey now? “It’s perfect,” he said more firmly.

“The crafters worked quite hard to create something lielthal-appropriate,” the messenger said. “If it is not to your liking, we can--”

“Please tell your crafters that the clothing is flawless and I am very happy with it,” Clark said.

The messenger opened his opalescent eyes wider and smiled in delight, then turned to Bruce. “And you, sir?”

Bruce looked up from an armful of silvery-gray cloth. “It’s exquisite,” he said gravely, with no laughter or irony in his voice at all. “You even included a mask. Thank you.”

The messenger shrugged in a way that suggested it was no one’s business if the honored ambassador preferred to conceal his face. “I shall pass on the good news,” he said. “All are looking forward to seeing you tonight.”

“Well,” murmured Bruce as the messenger hurried away. “This may not be boring after all.”

“This...doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” Clark said dubiously, holding up his clothing. “And they didn’t include any undergarments. One strong breeze and I’m going to create an intergalactic incident.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Bruce said, but did not elaborate further as he pulled off his Batman suit with crisp and methodical motions, stripping down to the skin and pulling the swirling robe over his head. It hid most of his body, but seemed to shift like smoke, revealing random slopes of muscle and whispers of shining scars as he moved. He picked up the mask, which was made of some kind of black metal filigree, and slipped it over his face, then looked at Clark, raising an eyebrow. “Well?”

The metal was like lace, obscuring Bruce’s features while allowing glimpses of his face and eyes to glint through tantalizingly. Clark realized he was staring and looked away hastily. “It hides your face well enough,” he said.

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” said Bruce. “But aren’t you going to put yours on?”

“Right,” said Clark. “Hm.”

He tried to aim for the same nonchalance as Bruce in stripping off his costume and slipping the robe over his head, but felt like his motions were clumsy and uncertain. “Oh geez,” he said, looking down at the scarlet cloth as it rippled around him.

“You look exquisite,” Bruce said. Clark shot him a sharp look, but Bruce’s mouth remained free of any sardonic tilt. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing toward the door.

“I just hope we can get through this without destroying the treaty through some terrible faux pas,” Clark said dubiously.

“We’ll be fine,” Bruce said. “When in Rome, do as the Romans and all that.”

“What were you saying about doing as the Romans?” Clark said an hour or so later, looking around the banquet room.

“Well,” said Bruce, with just a hint of laughter in his voice, “if I remember my history lessons correctly, Rome was famous for its orgies.”

The air was heavy with musk and perfume and the sounds of lovemaking; Clark tried to avert his eyes politely from six places at once. He was the only one doing so, he realized. In fact, some of the more… acrobatic sets of lovers had appreciative audiences. “My history classes never covered that,” he muttered.

“Ah, Kansas public education,” Bruce said sorrowfully.

“Shush,” said Clark. “So what do we do now?”

As if on cue, High Chancellor Dheaeval came bounding up to them, radiant with delight. “Ambassadors!” she called out. “What an honor to have you here at the lielthal.” She bowed and added with the air of a ritual phrase, “May your pleasure be a seal unto all our hearts.”

Someone behind Clark cried out in rapture, a throaty sound of abandon, and delighted applause rose up in response. “May it indeed,” Bruce said to the Chancellor. “But Superman and I have to admit that we do not have a ceremony like the lielthal on our home planet, and we are unsure how to best participate.”

“No lielthal?” The Chancellor seemed taken aback. “How in the world do you finalize important treaties and agreements?”

“A hearty handshake?” Clark muttered. Bruce’s elbow managed to find a gap in the silken robe and hit his ribs. Clark hoped he’d banged his funny bone.

“Is this…” Dheaeval’s voice faltered. “Is this offensive to you in some way? Have we--”

“Not at all, not at all!” Clark put all the sincerity he could muster into his voice, hoping to wipe out the alarm in Dheaeval’s eyes. “We just were hoping you could educate us about what our role would be in this.”

“Explain it to us as though we were children being told about the lielthal for the first time,” Bruce added.

“Well…” The High Chancellor cast her eyes upward as though searching for the right words. “When great conflicts are finally put aside, a lielthal is held to celebrate the new harmony and joy. The lielthal ends when all the participants have achieved their fullest potential pleasure at least once, for all to enjoy.”

Another deep groan of bliss reached Clark’s ears, so intensely satisfied that his toes almost curled. I wonder what Bruce would sound like--

He cut the thought off brutally and made himself pay attention to their Lielthal for Alien Dummies lecture.

“More than once is perfectly acceptable, mind you,” Dheaeval said, holding up a didactic finger. “But it only needs to be publicly vouched for once. Some, of course, like to show off a bit and be vouched for many times. Why, there was a lielthal three years ago where my sister was vouched for ten times before the night was over.” She shook her head in affectionate exasperation. One of her aides came up behind her and put its--Aehtaeaseans had at least three sexes and this was one of the ones Clark didn’t know the pronouns for--arms around her, nuzzling the back of her neck and slipping long fingers under her robe; she gave it a playful swat and murmured “Not yet, dear.”

“Are participants required to have any specific partners?” Bruce asked as though they were discussing which fork to use at a formal dinner.

“Not at all,” Dheaeval said. “You may have only one or as many as you like; formal mate-bonds are not considered binding for the lielthal. Invitations can be given freely, but also rejected freely. Parents and siblings are taboo, but beyond that all is allowed for the sake of the pact and the pleasure.” She smiled at Bruce, then at Clark. “Of course, you two need not worry about being close family with anyone here. If you are interested, I offer myself as a partner with either or both of you. It would be a delight to give you pleasure to seal the alliance you helped build.”

“Oh, I-- I don’t know if-- I-- I mean, it’s not that you’re not, uh--” said Clark, then stopped himself from stammering anything even more stupid.

“I invited Superman just before you arrived, Chancellor. My regrets,” Bruce cut in.

“The regret is entirely mine,” smiled Dheaeval. “But somehow I shall console myself--where did Cerdeph go?” she murmured to herself, raising an arm to flag down the aide who had embraced her earlier. “Cerdeph has been hoping for a lielthal since we started working together,” she said to Clark and Bruce as her co-worker came bounding up, beaming. “And I confess I’ve been wanting to see just how inventive--” Her voice broke off as Cerdeph went to its knees in front of her, pushing aside the silvery robe and bending close to the curly golden hair exposed at her crotch. “Oh,” she murmured, a flush rising to her cheeks and her eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

“Well then,” said Clark, “we’ll just be going--”

“Mmm,” said Dheaeval. Her voice had gone husky. “Stay and vouch for my pleasure, Ambassadors, as it is my first--oh.” She slipped her fingers under his robe to caress herself and then Cerdeph’s head, and Clark heard Bruce swallow hard.

It probably should have been agonizingly awkward, watching the High Chancellor be pleasured by her aide, and yet when everyone else in the hall was either fucking or watching--or sometimes both at once--the only truly awkward thing was having Bruce standing so very close to him as Dheaeval made increasingly broken sounds of rapture, her knees giving out until she sank to the marble floor, back arched in pleasure. Bruce was about a foot behind him to the left, near enough that Clark could touch him if he just reached out, near enough that Clark could practically feel the heat of his body. And he’d invited-- well, he’d said he had; did that count as an actual invitation? Clark wondered. Were they really going to--

Dheaevel gasped and shuddered with a sharp, climatic groan, eventually going limp as Cerdeph moved to nuzzle at her neck, arms wrapped around her. Polite applause broke out; Clark joined in and heard Bruce do so as well. She opened her eyes and smiled up at them. “Thank you for vouching for me,” she said in a warm, satisfied voice as she pulled Cerdeph closer.

“Well,” Bruce said. Clark turned to see Bruce looking at him. “Our turn?” He looked around the hall, spotting an unoccupied piece of furniture that was close to a chaise longue. “I’d rather not be on the floor,” he murmured, and reached out to take Clark’s wrist.

Clark bit his lip as a stab of lust went through him at the warmth and pressure of Bruce’s fingers, letting himself be drawn over to the chair.

“Sorry about laying claim to you like that,” Bruce said in English, dropping the Interlac. “I figured you might be uneasy about not knowing Aehtaeasean biology or anatomy and wouldn’t want to risk a diplomatic incident.” He sat down on the chair, almost primly. The smoky black robe drifted around him.

“Oh,” said Clark, feeling somehow deflated. “Yes, that was quick thinking.” He sat down next to Bruce, who was still holding his wrist. “So how are you going to make it look like we’ve--you know--”

Bruce tilted his head, puzzled. “Look like?”

“I’m sure you’ve got a plan to--so we don’t--”

Bruce’s face went through a variety of different emotions very quickly, settling into a somewhat pained grimace. “Clark, that’s not something I feel comfortable faking. Not when it’s so important to this alliance that the pleasure be legitimate.” The grimace shifted into something more tentative, almost vulnerable. “Do you not… I can ask Dheaevel to come back and--”

“No,” Clark managed. A variety of Aehtaeaseans were looking at them--some obliquely and some directly. “No, this is good.” Bruce looked at him and Clark heard himself say again, like his voice belonged to a stranger, “This is good.”

“Well,” said Bruce. He was almost smiling beneath the mask. “I hope it will be, at least.”

He leaned in and kissed Clark, and Clark could feel the cold metal of the mask press against his skin for a moment before it warmed between them. The kiss was tentative and gentle right up until the moment it finally, truly dawned on Clark that he was actually kissing Bruce Wayne.

Shortly after that, Clark found himself straddling Bruce, who was flat on his back on the sofa. Clark pulled back and stared at him for a moment, realizing that both of them were breathing heavily. Bruce’s hair was a wild tangle against the beige brocade, and Clark blurted out, “I never get to see you masked but with your hair showing. It’s like-- It’s like you’re both of you at once.”

Bruce’s slow smile knew exactly what Clark’s jumbled words meant. “I don’t often get to see you without either the glasses or the costume,” he said. He drew Clark’s hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles, an oddly courtly gesture. Clark blinked at him. Then Bruce tugged him down close and Clark felt his earlobe being gently tugged into the warmth of Bruce’s mouth. “We have to put on a show and I assume it’s best if it looks as spontaneous as possible,” Bruce murmured in English. “So rather than have a long awkward conversation, tell me quickly how you want this to go.”

“I, uh…” Bruce’s tongue flicked at his ear and Clark was finding it very hard to concentrate. “I guess what I’d like is for you to maybe… you know.”

“I don’t know,” Bruce said with just a hint of battish growl in his voice. “Obviously.”

The silken robe was doing nothing to conceal Clark’s arousal, and he was vastly relieved to feel Bruce’s erection pressing urgently against his hip as well. “Well, I think what might work best would be…” There were a dozen or so people watching them, smiling warmly at this display of alien courting rituals; Clark smiled politely back and tried to string together a coherent sentence. “Overall, I’d be fine with anything, but…”

Bruce’s teeth closed on his earlobe in a way that would be painful to any human and still managed to startle Clark. “Clark,” Bruce said.

“Fuck me,” Clark almost yelped. “I’d like you to fuck me.”

There was a short silence in which Clark heard his own heart hammering and realized that he had somehow gotten even harder. Then Bruce dropped back onto the brocade pillow and smiled up at him, a lazy predatory smile that blended playboy and vigilante in terrifyingly exhilarating ways. “You have no idea how much I was hoping you’d say that,” Bruce murmured.

Clark was, in turn, fairly certain Bruce had no idea just how many times he’d imagined Bruce looking at him like that, as if he’d finally gotten something he’d wanted for a long time. He stared, entranced, as affection and tenderness and fierce desire all came and went on Bruce’s face.

“Would the gentlesirs care for lubricant?” Clark bit back another yelp as a smiling Aehtaeasean carrying a colorfully-painted box seemed to materialize next to the couch. “We have several types, as well as aphrodisiacs and virility-enhancers…”

“We will take your least-scented lubricant,” Bruce said without hesitation. “We won’t be needing the rest at all,” he added with a smug grin at Clark that sent shivers down Clark’s spine. Taking a small silvery bulb from the vendor, he dropped it on a small table next to the couch. “But let’s start slow. Give them a show.”

Clark tried not to look around at all the bright, eager eyes watching the exotic aliens get it on. “I… never really wanted this to happen for the first time with a hall of people watching us,” he murmured. “It feels kind of…”

Bruce’s smile was wry and gentle. “It wasn’t exactly my first choice either,” he said. He pushed Clark’s robes out of the way, his hand sliding up Clark’s thigh. “But think of it this way. Remember all those times Darkseid or Mongul or some other tinpot galactic dictator tortured you in public?”

“Um.” Bruce’s thumb was caressing just the very edge of his balls; Clark felt them tighten at the touch. “Yes. So?”

“Well, if you were willing to endure being tortured for the amusement of a crowd, isn’t it substantially better to be pleasured for the joy of these kind people? To celebrate peace?”

“When you put it that way,” Clark said, trying to keep his head clear and mostly failing. He wanted it so much--“I guess I should do my best to relax and enjoy myself, huh?”

“I think I can help with that,” Bruce said, and shifted his touch to encircle the base of Clark’s cock, jerking him off with confident ease.

Clark almost cried out at the touch--so long-desired, so still-unexpected--and Bruce smiled at him as if he understood exactly what that stifled sound meant. A murmur of appreciative delight went through the watching crowd, and Clark fought a sudden impulse to pull his robe around him more tightly and hide the evidence of the effect Bruce was having on him. We’re celebrating peace, he reminded himself, but he felt anything but peaceful, he felt arousal shuddering through him in great waves, magnificent and undeniable. “Slow down,” he managed to say, and the delicious friction eased enough that he wasn’t afraid he was going to come right then and there.

Bruce reached out with his free hand and unerringly picked up the little silvery packet of lube, never taking his eyes from Clark’s face. Clark could feel his erection pinned between them, nudging imperiously at Clark’s body. “Feel free to do the honors,” Bruce said.

The alien lube was slightly warm and silkily frictionless. “Oh,” said Bruce in some surprise as Clark grasped his cock with slippery fingers, “I should get the formula for this, Wayne Enterprises could make a killing. I could call it GothLube--”

“Shush,” said Clark, stroking, and Bruce shushed for a moment, biting his lip.

“Or,” he went on, his voice breaking slightly, “the uses for the Justice League of a nearly-frictionless liquid are--”

“Shush,” Clark repeated more firmly, and started to lower himself onto Bruce’s cock, inch by inch.

This caused Bruce to shush, but only in the sense of cutting off his words, because he made a sharp growling noise and grabbed at Clark’s hips. A scattering of spontaneous applause rippled around the hall--Clark didn’t know if it was meant for them and thought it wiser not to check--as they moved together, tentatively at first, then with more confidence. They went slowly, building tension, teasing it--the desire for completion, connection, the yearning for an end to the friction. Clark could feel eyes on him, but he was past caring as he looked down at Bruce’s face, flushed and fierce under the mask of metallic lace. Bruce’s hands on him were imperative and coaxing at the same time, Bruce’s body within his an electrifying pleasure.

“You’re so good,” Clark said without thinking, and Bruce made a startled noise, as if he’d never imagined anyone saying something so simple and direct to him. He bucked up hard against Clark’s body--once, twice, three times--and his hand tightened on Clark beyond what any human could have borne, but was perfect, perfect, it was all perfect-- Clark tipped his head back and felt their combined pleasure as one flawless thing, the bright gazes on them only amplifying it, somehow. For a moment he transcended any embarrassment and simply was there.

And then the moment passed and he realized that he was sweaty and sticky and sitting on top of an equally sticky, sweaty teammate as people applauded happily. He looked down at Bruce and wished he had a mask to hide his own face--though the wry smile Bruce tilted toward him hinted he felt as exposed as Clark did at the moment. Clark looked around at the joyous, approving faces and dredged through his scattered thoughts until he found the phrase the High Chancellor had used: “Thank you for vouching for us.”

The applause brightened for a moment in delight that he had remembered the correct phrase, and Clark breathed a sigh of relief. He looked back down at Bruce, who was looking up at him with something that looked almost like bemusement. “Kiss me,” Bruce whispered in English, and Clark leaned in and put his mouth to that sweetly stern curve, sighing into the kiss as he felt Bruce slipping from his body.

By the time the kiss ended, the attention of the party had shifted elsewhere and they were no longer the center of attention. Bruce swiped at Clark’s sticky skin with his robe, whistling in astonishment as sweat and semen were absorbed by the cloth with no trace. “Humans may have invented Teflon and velcro to get to the moon, but this planet has made huge technological advances in the service of diplomatic orgies,” he said, staring at the fluffy, dry cloth. “On the whole, I think they may have the better deal of it.”

Clark pushed him slightly aside to make room and sank down beside him on the couch, half-draped across him. “I’m sure you can describe a host of pragmatic, useful ways we could use that cloth.”

“Oh, I could,” Bruce said, tugging experimentally at Clark’s robe. “The medical uses alone--” He broke off as he looked at Clark’s face. “But I won’t right now,” he said.

“That’s good,” said Clark. He closed his eyes.

“Are you really going to take a post-coital nap right here in the middle of this party?” Bruce sounded amused.

“Actually, I find it pretty peaceful,” Clark said.

He felt Bruce wrap his arms around him; a kiss was dropped on his temple. “You know what?” Bruce said. “You’re right.”

They lay there together, hearing the orgy unfolding around them. Clark listened to the cries and moans of pleasure, the approving applause, the vendors hawking aphrodisiacs, and Bruce’s soft breathing, and what he heard was peace, peace, peace.

Open Thread: Oracle Hotline

2016-11-18T03:15:39Z

--Got any premises on the back burner that you'd care to share?

I'm alive! And writing! I went to my beta in despair about my love story ending and he helped me restructure it so it felt more authentic and less wooden, and I ended up happy with it, so that's good! I hope you're all finding some authenticity and joy in your writing this week.

Haha, I have about 12 prompts sitting in my DC folder and about 30 or so in my wrestling folder, so yeah, I have a lot of back burner ideas. Wrestling canon is rumored to be planning to pull the rug out from under me and separate my OTP (by doing the equivalent of putting them in different comic book titles where they won't interact anymore), so I'm worried about the fate of some of the prompts. But on the other hand, that separation's been rumored since July, so any time I get is bonus. Also, comic books have taught me well how to blithely ignore canon...

Let's see, "Bruce and Clark go to Applebee's" is one prompt listing. "Sami and Kevin bodyswap" is there as well, because every OTP needs a bodyswap fic. Heck, that one might work BETTER if they're separated. Silver linings...

A Week of Rain (Chapter 8/8)

2016-10-23T11:47:38Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 8/8
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Seven (2100 words):

His hand still hurt. Clark stared at the bruised knuckles in some wonderment. Outside of the lake house, the rain fell in a steady hiss into the morning, a white noise that blotted out the rest of the world. He couldn’t hear anything beyond it: couldn’t hear his mother’s heartbeat, or the weeping of children, or the screams of the dying. Not even if he’d tried.

He closed his eyes and listened to the rain for a long, quiet space.

“What will you do now?” Bruce was sitting next to him on the floor, staring at the flames in the fireplace.

“Go back to Metropolis, I guess. I have friends that will be happy to know I’m still alive. Get back to work.”

“Work.” It wasn’t quite a question.

Clark smiled at Bruce. “Both kinds of work, assuming my powers come back.” Then he shrugged. “And if they don’t, well… I can still help in some way, I’m sure.”

“So even if you have no powers, you won’t go back to a...normal life?” Bruce kept his voice level, but Clark could hear the emotion beneath the words as clearly as if Bruce had shouted them: You won’t leave me?

“You don’t have powers, right?” Bruce’s mouth twitched wryly and he nodded. “So it can be done. I can help in some way.” Clark waved a hand at the soft whisper of rain outside, the mist lifting from the lake into the steel-gray sky. “This has been...wonderful. But it’s not my life.” He looked at Bruce. “It’s not your life.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not our life.”

“Our life,” Bruce said softly, and for a moment they simply sat together.

Then Bruce came to his feet, all business. “Okay, about the sunlight. I’ve been thinking about it and it seems Kryptonian cells absorb solar radiation and transform it into energy, so it stands to reason that if we expose you to sunlight, your powers may well come back. All we have to do is drive out of this weather system and get you into the sun and--”

“--Bruce.” Clark caught at Bruce’s hand without rising. “My powers first manifested as a child. For decades, I’ve been able to hear voices on the other side of the world. I’ve been impervious to heat, to cold, to pain. I’ve been able to see microbes.”

“Really?” For a moment Bruce’s face lit up with an almost childlike curiosity and Clark caught a glimpse of the young boy he had once been. “That sounds amazing.”

Clark couldn’t help but laugh. “It is, when it isn’t incredibly distracting. I’ve always had to find ways to...take in less, to process less, to cut myself off from the stimuli that were constantly bombarding me, or I’d have gone mad. When I have my powers, being fully here and now and not, say, hearing music in Sydney or seeing microwaves--it takes an active effort of will.”

The scientific zeal on Bruce’s face had faded into sympathy. “That sounds...difficult,” he said, frowning.

“Sometimes,” Clark admitted. “But Bruce, this last week, here with you--I’ve been fully here and now, all the time. It’s been...a gift.” He touched the smooth slate of the floor, feeling the cool of it under his hand. “A gift I only became fully aware of once I got my memories back. But now I know.” He smiled up at Bruce. “And it’s a gift I’d like to enjoy for a few hours more with you.”

Bruce sank down slowly to sit next to him on the rug once more, his stern face set in uncharacteristically hesitant lines. “Of course,” he said, and Clark saw the rest of the sentence--It’s the least I can do considering I basically murdered you--flicker through his eyes, saw him swallow the words with an effort. It was a beginning, at least. “We can enjoy the fire, I can have Alfred bring us some food--I bet you haven’t ever been able to enjoy alcohol, I have some great brandy we could--”

“Bruce,” Clark said. “I was thinking of something more...intimate.”

“Oh,” said Bruce. He had gone very still. He sat for a moment in silence, as if thinking deeply, then burst out: “Can you not have sex when you have powers? How does that work?” He caught himself. “Uh, sorry. But I’ve wondered.”

“You’ve wondered.”

“I’ve wondered a lot,” Bruce admitted.

“I can have sex,” Clark said. “It’s just…” He groped for words to describe it. Here, sitting on the floor without powers, with the soft sound of the rain and the crackle of the fire all around, it was almost hard to imagine it. “There’s always part of me that has to be working to not see or hear or feel too much. Like having intrusive thoughts that you can learn to banish, but it’s still a conscious thing you have to do. It became second nature, a habit. But it’s not the same as it would be...no. I want…” He reached out and covered Bruce’s hand with his own. “I want to see what it’s like to lose myself in it completely. With you.”

“Oh.” Bruce rubbed at his chin. “So what do you want to do?”

Clark’s heart seemed to lurch. “Everything,” he said fervently. “I can’t--you can’t ask me to choose. I trust you.”

Something complex and pained flickered behind Bruce’s eyes at Clark’s last words. He took a breath. “All right then,” he said. “If you really trust me, I have a favor to ask of you.”

Clark was lying on a blanket thrown down on the slate floor of the living room, for Bruce couldn’t bear to take him into the dark of the bedroom. No more darkness. Here, where windows let in the misty silver light, here was the right place.

There was a long, thin scratch along Clark’s midriff where some bramble had slipped through his clothes. There was a bruise on his hipbone, just above his jeans, gained from banging into something in the dark of the caves. Bruce touched his lips to both small wounds and heard Clark murmur something wordless, the sound blending with the rain. He pushed Clark’s sweater higher, exposing more and more skin, reveling in the sight of it, touching each rib almost reverently. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth came a sudden echo from his childhood, like light through stained glass windows and the scent of incense. He banished it as sternly as he had banished his thoughts about Kryptonian biology. No gods here, just two men. But his fingers trembled for a moment before he could steady them again.

He could feel Clark’s breaths quickening at his touch, and as he approached a nipple Clark suddenly squirmed out of his sweater, emerging flushed and with his hair rumpled, smiling at Bruce almost triumphantly. Bruce flicked his fingers across the nipple and Clark’s smile faltered into surprise and delight, his eyes going half-closed. “That feels…” His voice trailed off.

After a long silence, Bruce dragged his finger across to the other nipple, feeling Clark tense in anticipation before he brushed it, summoning a shaky sigh. “How does it feel?”

“Like everything,” Clark said. “Like…everything.”

“I don’t want my pleasure to be part of it,” Bruce had explained. “I want this to be about you. About me making you feel.” Feel something other than pain and fear, he hadn’t said. I want to know that I can bring you joy. “I want my pleasure to be your pleasure.”

Clark had looked at him for a long time, head slightly to the side, his gaze seeming to look at and through Bruce, reading his soul. Then he had smiled.

“This time,” he had said like a promise.

So Bruce bent over him and felt Clark’s pulse flutter in his throat against Bruce’s lips. He took Clark out of his clothes and savored the sight of him smiling then relished the way that smile faltered as he put his hands on him at last, stroking and coaxing.

“That’s--” Clark’s voice was breathless. He canted his hips upward into Bruce’s touch. “Oh.” He reached up and grabbed at Bruce’s collar like a drowning man clutching at a spar. “It’s--it’s--don’t stop.”

Bruce stopped and Clark glared at him. The glare broke off into a startled noise as Bruce shifted to kiss the bruise on his hip again, then moved to his thighs. Bruce felt his stubble scratching at the skin of Clark’s inner thighs; Clark’s erection pushed up against him harder at the sensation. Clark hissed, and his hands hovered over Bruce’s head, the fingers splayed.

Bruce reached up and took Clark’s hand and put it on his head. Then he took Clark in his mouth, revelling in the sound he made, sharp and surprised and abandoned. Clark’s fingers tightened in his hair, and Bruce let them guide him, let Clark set the pace: slow at first, luxurious. The soft and constant sound of the rain turned to a gentle whisper as they moved together, and Bruce lost himself in Clark’s delight. By the time Clark cried out, his back arching, even that had faded and there was nothing but the sound of Clark’s hoarse breaths and his own heartbeat in his ears, hammering with joy undeserved.

They lay together for a time, listening to the first birds greeting the morning. Clark’s eyes were drowsy and replete. “Thank you,” he said.

“I’m not done yet,” Bruce said. He kissed Clark’s collarbone and rested his head on his chest, reading the clues of his body: heartbeat, capillary dilation, breath rate. When he was fairly certain Clark was ready for more, he said, “Now I want to watch your face,” and reached down to take Clark in his hand again.

Clark gasped and yearned up into Bruce’s touch, sensitive and shuddering. He was hard again almost immediately (so young, Bruce thought wryly), eager under Bruce’s hands.

“Oh, I’ve never felt-- that’s too good, it’s--” Clark fell silent, his eyes closed, all his focus turned inward. The mist on the lake was lifting, the light turning from misty silver to pale gold, and Bruce watched Clark’s face as Bruce’s touch carried him back into pleasure, and then into release. He watched his former enemy abandon himself beneath his hands, and in that trust and faith found a different kind of release at last.

Some time later, Clark--cleaned up but still gloriously nude, sprawled across the blanket on the floor with lazy grace--looked out at the lake. For the first time in a week, sunlight touched the water and sent gleams of light all around the lake house. Bruce watched as a square of morning slanted across the floor, drawing close to them.

This time he didn’t move to close the shutters.

He propped himself up on an elbow and watched as Clark reached out, his bruised hand coming to rest in the oblong of light. As the sun touched his fingers, the dark marks faded away, leaving the skin unmarred, touched with gold.

They waited together as the light moved to caress Clark’s face, limning his eyelashes; the scar on his cheek vanished into radiance. Clark sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to smile at Bruce as the light moved across him. There were tears on his lashes like diamonds.

The scratch on his abdomen, the bruise on his hipbone: inch by slow inch the sunlight washed them away.

Bruce had thought when Clark’s abilities came back there would be a burst of energy, a surge of power. He hadn’t expected it to be so quiet, so gentle: Clark simply seemed to become more himself, to inhabit his own skin more fully, more truly. There was a beauty to it beyond anything Bruce had imagined, and for a fearful moment he could see a chasm open up between them again, between the sunlit god and the creature of fear and darkness.

And then Clark laughed as if he could see Bruce’s fears in his eyes, and pulled him into the hopeful sunlight for a kiss warm and bright enough to lift any shadow.

Ficlet: Sick Day (Music of the Spheres)

2016-10-17T10:22:46Z

Sick Day (885 words) by mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Superman Returns (2006)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth
Additional Tags: Illnesses, Fluff, Slice of Life
Series: Part 2 of Music of the Spheres (Note: wow, did I screw up the import of this series to AO3! It should have been a series, but I made it all one story until now, ugh, and it's not fixable, ah well).
Summary:

Superman was working in the Fortress, the Northern Lights flickering above him, when his comlink chirped. “Clark,” said Bruce’s voice.

Clark dropped the crystal he was working on, hearing it ting on the floor. “What is it?” He was already in mid-air, ready to fly, his heart pounding at the distress in that one word. “Just tell me where to go, what’s the--”

“I need your help,” Bruce said plaintively.

“Of course! I’ll be right--”

“--It’s Alfred.”

Clark was over Canada by the time the first syllable of Alfred’s name was uttered, was in civilian clothes and in the Manor before the last consonant died away, bursting into the room where--thank God--he could still hear two heartbeats. “What is it?” he blurted out.

Alfred was lying in his bed, his eyes closed. Bruce was sitting by his side, holding his hand, every line of his body a taut scream of distress. He looked over as Clark came in, and Clark faltered at the panic in his eyes.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said weakly, “It’s merely--” He coughed, and Bruce flinched. “It’s merely a cold, for heaven’s sake. A day of rest and I’ll be right as rain.”

“He’s never been this sick before,” Bruce said.

Alfred almost smiled. “My dear boy, that is simply not true. It hasn’t happened recently, I admit.”

“I’ve never seen you this sick.”

“That may well be true,” Alfred said. “But I’ve suffered the common cold before and I assure you, I will somehow manage to pull through.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Alfred patted Bruce’s hand. “Some orange juice would be welcome.”

“Right.” Bruce jumped to his feet. “Orange juice,” he blurted, and bolted from the room.

Clark sat down in the chair Bruce had just vacated. “Are you sure you’re all right? Bruce seems...worried.”

Alfred sighed. “You mean terrified.”

“Well, yes.” Clark’s own composure had been rather shaken at the sight of Bruce’s eyes, gone young and startled in that usually-stoic face. He reached out and touched Alfred’s forehead. “You are a bit hot.”

“I have a slight fever and some chest congestion,” Alfred said. “But I assure you that I will be perfectly well in no time.”

“Bruce says he’s never seen you this sick.”

Alfred actually chuckled ruefully. “That’s quite possible, I’m afraid, and my own fault. You may not have noticed, but Master Bruce...does not react well to even potential loss.”

“I had gotten that impression, yes,” Clark said, sharing a wry smile with him.

“As a result, I have worked through whatever minor illnesses and ailments have come my way rather than resting. Not the best system, perhaps, but I knew he would feel alone and afraid, and I hated to cause him distress. It was never anything beyond my endurance. But this time is different.”

Clark frowned. “Are you feeling so sick this time that you can’t--”

“--You misunderstand me,” Alfred said. “The difference is that this is the first time I’ve been ill since you entered Bruce’s life. I know you will be here for him. He will not feel alone with you here to reassure him. I trust you, and so I can rest easy.”

Clark’s vision blurred at the warmth in Alfred’s voice, the confidence and serenity. “Thank you, sir,” he managed, and wiped his eyes.

“Oh God.” Clark looked up to see Bruce standing in the door, horror on his face at the sight of Clark’s tears. The glass of orange juice slipped from his hand, and Clark jumped up to catch it before it could hit the floor. “Oh God,” Bruce repeated, “is it that bad?”

“No, no,” Clark said quickly. “Not at all.”

“I was just telling Clark that I was pleased you were in his life,” Alfred said.

Bruce did not look relieved. If anything, the thought of Alfred suddenly being so demonstrative seemed even more alarming.

“I swear, Bruce, I scanned his lungs and listened to his heart. It’s nothing severe.” Clark put the orange juice down on the nightstand and took Bruce’s hands in his. “I promise,” he said.

Bruce looked at him for a long moment, and slowly some of the lost look ebbed from his eyes. He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, and then again: “Okay.”

“I think the best thing to do right now would be to let Alfred get some sleep,” Clark said. Bruce grimaced, and Clark added, “I’ll listen to his heartbeat the whole time and if anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

“Stop hovering and let an old man get some sleep,” Alfred said huffily.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Clark said, steering Bruce back toward the door. “You know what we can do? I’ll teach you my mother’s famous chicken soup recipe. She makes it with egg noodles, and it has miraculous healing powers. You can chop the celery.”

Alfred listened to them go down the stairs, listened to Clark teasing Bruce about his lack of cooking skills. By the time they reached the foot of the stairs he could hear Bruce’s voice raised in protest, pointing out that he was perfectly capable of chopping celery, or anything else that might need chopping. He sounded annoyed and determined, the forlorn panic gone from his voice.

Alfred closed his eyes and relaxed, smiling.

FIC: Duoing High-Level Content

2016-10-07T11:29:39Z

Duoing High-Level Content(2177 words) by mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Online Friendship, identity play, Humor
Summary:

Clark Kent got into playing an online multiplayer game in his free time to relax. But when he meets another player whose fighting style meshes perfectly with his own, he finds an additional reason to spend time in the virtual world.

Note: A birthday present for the ever-inspiring ilovetobefree ! I hope your day was great!

Clark Kent hit “send” on the very last work email and sighed in relief, leaning back and stretching. He was done with work, he didn’t have to be at the Watchtower for another 90 minutes, and that meant…

He clicked on the icon and waited impatiently as the loading bar inched across his screen, feeling a smile light up his face as the character select screen finally showed up. He looked at the array of characters, but he already knew which one he was going to pick, the only one he’d had the time and patience to get above level twenty: Silver Shadow, his high-level ninja.

“Let’s do this,” he murmured into the silence of his apartment as he clicked on Shadow and entered Shogun and Samurai Online.

It was silly, he knew, to use any of his limited free time playing a computer game. But there was something really relaxing about doing something where superspeed didn’t help him much--he had better button-pressing reflexes than most players, but he couldn’t actually make his character fight faster than the game parameters, after all.

He frowned, looking around the wharf where Shadow had materialized. What had he been in the middle of--that was right, he was collecting badges from the thugs hired by a rival daimyo to hand in for improved faction in the local town. He spotted a group of them and grinned to himself, leaping toward them.

Clark didn’t like player versus player mode--dealing with incompetent people who became angry and screamed insults when you beat them was his life, not something he wanted to continue in his free time. No, he found beating computer AIs much more satisfying. And in addition--

Shadow landed in the middle of the group of thugs, his blades whirling, mowing down ten of them in one blow. The ninja struck a dramatic pose as the last one fell, and a rain of cherry blossoms swirled around him.

In addition, Clark thought as he collected five more badges, it was a lot of fun to just carve his way through everything in his path now and then.

He had just done his turn-in when a little alert popped up in the corner of his screen, and Clark felt himself grinning: this night had gotten even better.

Want to tackle the Rogue Ronin mission again? he typed to Hoshiro. He knew he risked looking a little over-eager, sending a message the instant he--well, Clark always called Hoshiro “he” because the avatar was male, and he couldn’t help assuming the same about the player, although he knew better--came online, but he only had an hour and there was no time to lose.

sure, the message came back. don’t screw it up this time.

Oh, come on. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t do enough damage, Clark typed as he clicked the teleportation stone to take him to the starting zone for the mission. I just scored a new sword, does extra supernatural damage. We can take him this time.

Hoshiro didn’t respond, which wasn’t that unusual. He was brusque and short with words, but he was the best damn tank in SaSO. Silver Shadow had met him in a random pick-up group and discovered they were the only two people who seemed to know what they were doing. Clark had added Hoshiro to his friends list and had messaged him when they were both online, and they’d fallen into a pattern of grouping up together. At first Hoshiro had brought along some members of his guild, but they’d been...unpleasant to group with. His guild being a bunch of homophobic jerks was the only flaw Hoshiro had, and Clark had been relieved when, one day, the tank had quietly and without fanfare shown up without the guild name above his head. It actually worked out better with just the two of them. Shadow dished out the damage, and Hoshiro kept the aggro on himself, and with some patience and a little luck they were able to do missions as a duo that usually would require a full group.

Hoshiro materialized in front of Shadow--his avatar was a nearly stereotypical tank, broad-shouldered and massively-muscled, wearing black samurai armor studded with rubies and sapphires. He bowed, and Clark made Shadow bow back.

Ready? he typed.

Hoshiro answered as he always did: you have to ask?

And they went into the mission together.

The Rogue Ronin mission was one of the tougher ones in the game; they could probably have completed it by now if they’d added a healer to the group, but Clark was enjoying the challenge and he suspected Hoshiro was too. They ploughed through the early levels with brisk efficiency, their timing clockwork-perfect, dealing with each challenge as it arose.

The final boss was the tricky part, and it required both massive amounts of burst damage and a tank able to taunt at exactly the right times, willing to stand unflinching as the health bar got ever lower. They’d failed at it four times now, but tonight was different, tonight they both did it perfectly. The Rogue Ronin’s spiritual avatar shrieked and lashed out at them, but Silver Shadow darted around, deftly avoiding his area of attack spells, while Hoshiro ignored the minion ghosts nibbling at his life bar and grimly held on to the aggro, shielding his damage-dealer from obliteration. And finally, the Ronin’s form collapsed into a geyser of silver light, and the two of them had finally defeated one of the toughest missions in the game.

Clark sat back, pumping one fist and yelling “Yes,” then feeling foolish. Getting so excited over a game…

Hoshiro stood still in the middle of the cave for a moment, and then text appeared in the group text box:

Take that, you ectoplasmic creep!!!

Clark burst out laughing. It was so completely uncharacteristic of Hoshiro, and Clark felt a sudden surge of affection for this completely unknown person, his teammate, who clearly was as psyched as he was to have defeated this challenge. He put his fingers on the keyboard and typed:

None can stand before our powers united! And he made his avatar do a backflip and pose.

haha, said Hoshiro, back to his usual style.

Clark hesitated for a moment. Then, before he could think better of it, he typed, Hey. Would you be willing to meet offline sometime? He was pretty sure Hoshiro’s player was in the same time zone as him, so maybe…

There was a significant pause, and then the message came back: can’t. A pause while Clark kicked himself, and then: i’m sorry.

No problem, Clark typed back. This was fun. Thanks.

It was just as well, he thought as he logged off and got ready to head to the Watchtower. They were just two random people who made a good team online, there was no knowing how they’d be in person. No reason to risk the great partnership they had in the game.

No reason to feel sad about it at all.

Batman was three and a half minutes late to monitor duty, and Bruce was kicking himself over it. It was unlikely anyone would even notice, much less call him on it, but he knew he should do better. He should have turned down that mission, he should have said he didn’t have time, but he’d wanted to take down that Rogue Ronin so badly…

He kicked himself again. Bruce, on the list of things you have to obsess over, a video game shouldn’t even be in the top thousand. He’d gotten into it for legitimate vengeance-related reasons--infiltrating a guild being used as a meeting-place for a crime ring--but once the ring was busted and the ringleaders in jail, he’d kept coming back. He didn’t know why.

Yes he did.

He kept coming back because he liked taking down bad guys without ever having to worry about collateral damage. He kept coming back because he liked playing a tank, because it was fun to stand in the middle of the chaos and draw it all to him and shrug off the damage.

And he kept coming back because he enjoyed teaming up with someone he didn’t even know except as pixels on a screen.

Oh sure, he could have hacked the game systems and found out Silver Shadow’s name and address. But the day he ended up breaking the law for his own curiosity and not to stop crime--well, every harsh thing Superman had ever said about his methods would be justified then. So he just tried to guess, but so far the only clues he’d gleaned were that Shadow was male and lived in Metropolis. He seemed both well-educated and intelligent, and also like a good person--more than once their missions had gotten derailed when Shadow had seen a call for help in the general chat and gone charging off to lend a hand. Annoying, but a good person.

It was fun to group with him. Fun to work together with him. And tonight they’d completed the Rogue Ronin mission together at last.

And he’d asked if he could meet Hoshiro in person. Which was impossible. Completely impossible, so it was no use being sad about it.

“You look sad,” Superman said, looking over his shoulder at the monitors.

“I look like I always do,” Bruce said without thinking.

“Hm,” said Clark, and took a sip of coffee. “It’s not your face. It’s something about your shoulders. You have sad shoulders tonight.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Bruce.

Clark opened his mouth as if to say something else--and a klaxon sounded, a red light going off above Paris on the map.

“Looks like a...ghost? A ghost dragon?” Clark said, narrowing his eyes at the monitor showing a glowing silver dragon climbing the Eiffel Tower.

“There are no such things as--”

“Right, right, it’s a non-corporeal energy threat shaped like a dragon,” Clark corrected himself. “Or a ghost dragon,” he added under his breath.

“Think we need to call in backup?” Bruce tactfully did not remind Clark that he was vulnerable to magic, but Clark bristled anyway.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We can handle one non-corporeal dragon between us.”

Bruce managed to suppress a smile at his tone. “Let’s find out.”

As it turned out, it was a tough fight. The dragon got its claws into Superman once and Clark had screamed as they slid through his body, as if they were piercing his soul. But it had broken off the attack when Batman came sailing in and kicked it on its ugly semi-tangible snout, so that had worked out okay. Between the two of them, they’d battered it from the top of the Eiffel Tower until it finally glared at them, jaws gaping, and disappeared in an explosion of silver light.

Bruce looked around for new threats, but found nothing but sweeping vistas of Paris. Superman landed beside him, breathing heavily, his hair mussed. He pointed dramatically at the space the dragon had been, and then he announced:

“Take that, you ectoplasmic jerk!”

”What?” snapped Bruce, staring.

Clark swung to look at him, then turned red. He scratched the back of his head and said sheepishly, “I’m sorry, that was--that was--” He paused, then muttered: “It’s from a video game I play.” Bruce narrowed his eyes at him, and Clark stammered, “Okay, I know--it’s a dumb way to spend my free time, but it’s fun, and relaxing, and--”

Bruce put a hand on his shoulder; Clark stared at it. “You don’t need to apologise,” Bruce said solemnly. “What you do in your down time is nobody’s business, and whatever helps you unwind is valuable.”

Clark looked dubious.

“And now,” Bruce went on, “I’m going to say two things to you that I never thought I’d say out loud. The first is that it was ectoplasmic creep, not jerk.”

Clark blinked.

“The second is--” Bruce stepped back and declaimed: ”None can stand before our powers united!”

And then he did a backflip.

Clark stared. “No,” he said.

Bruce shrugged.

After a moment, Clark started smiling. “Millions of people playing this game, and we end up teaming up.”

“Only some of them are competent people,” Bruce said. “That narrows it down.”

“Did you just call me competent?” Clark looked absurdly pleased.

“I wouldn’t team with you if you weren’t,” Bruce huffed, looking away.

There was a brief silence in which Clark’s smile seemed to light up all of Paris.

Bruce cleared his throat. “I have an extra computer in the cave,” he said. “I bet we could even do the Lair of the Mountain Witch mission as a duo if we could communicate in real time--”

Both of their communicators went off at once.

“Or,” said Bruce thoughtfully as information started streaming in, “we could stop Giganta from stealing the Great Sphinx.”

“Sounds like a good mission,” said Clark. He smiled. “Are you ready?”

“Do you have to ask?” said Bruce, and they were off again.

A Week of Rain (Chapter 7)

2016-09-29T12:36:29Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 7/8
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Seven (2100 words):

The clock stood open before him, as if time itself had granted him entry. Clark Kent stared into the darkness and took one tentative step onto the first stair.

At the pressure of his foot, lights flickered into existence: wan lights with gaps of darkness between them where bulbs had long ago given out, but enough to see by.

Step by careful step, Clark descended below the Manor.

The stairs were solid stone, carved into the bedrock as if to last millennia, but Clark’s footsteps were the only thing disturbing the dust and ash that coated them. The echoes of his steps disappeared into a vast darkness that Clark could sense opening up all around him, broken only by the faint dripping of water and a distant rustling of wings. He had no idea how far it stretched, but it felt like he were falling into it, a tiny raindrop in a dizzying void.

He had to sit down on the stairs and catch his breath for a long moment, feeling his heart pounding. Turn around, turn back, it’s not too late…

But it was too late, Clark knew. It was always too late to turn back. They always had to move forward.

So he moved forward.

The cave floor was uneven, but not natural. He bent down and touched it: old concrete that crumbled slightly under his fingers. He could see the smudges of dust and soot on his fingertips in the dim light.

Moving slowly forward, he almost tripped over the computer.

Dropping to his haunches, he squinted at the snarl of wires emerging from the back, torn off at the roots. The screen was a crazed whorl of glass. Someone had worked here, long ago.

(The smell of concrete dust and ash and sorrow hooked at his memories. He didn’t want to remember He had to remember He didn’t want to).

Groping forward, his hand collided with something that felt like plexiglass--and he recoiled as a light came on to reveal a dark bat-shaped figure right in front of him.

He fell backwards with a warding hand thrown in the air, hearing the echoes of his “No!” rattle through the cave, answered by the rustling squeaks of the bats. After a moment he lowered it and peered ahead to see that what had startled him was a suit, empty like a suit of armor, in a display case.

It was sleeker than the shape of the mysterious Batman he had met in the ruins earlier: more streamlined, less armored. A suit for dodging pain rather than absorbing it. Clark stared at it for a long time, the echo of golden warmth circling his wrist, insistent and demanding: responsibility. Duty.

He reached out with a shaking hand and touched the glass as if he yearned to touch the suit, to press his hand to its heart.

“Bruce,” he whispered.

He turned around and Batman was there behind him, the real Batman, solid and armored and terrifying, and Clark flinched backwards into the case with an inarticulate noise of panic.

They stared at each other for a long moment, both of them locked in fight-or-flight, both of them frozen.

Clark put a hand out, saw it shaking in the air between them. Rested it on Batman’s chest. Batman--flinched, and almost took a step back, then stopped. Clark took a breath. “Bruce?” It was half question, half statement.

The visor slid open with eerie silence to reveal Bruce Wayne’s face, wry and uncertain, with fear at the corners of the eyes.

“Clark,” Bruce said: an answer and a new question.

“I shouldn’t be here,” was the first thing Clark said to him. He was shaking all over.

“Yes you should,” Bruce said. “Come here. I’ll show you--I’ll show you everything.”

They walked together, further into the darkness, walking away from the scene of Bruce’s greatest failure, the soot and the bloodstains on the floor. Walking away, but never leaving it behind. The passage to the bunker was narrow, long-disused; Bruce could hear Clark tripping over debris behind him as he followed.

He was an inverted Orpheus, leading love deeper into the underworld, Batman thought. Further into death and grief. He didn’t look behind him.

The lights came on automatically as they entered the bunker, illuminating the sterile steel and tile. Bruce heard Clark take a deep breath behind him, but he crossed over to the computer, turning it on, calling up Diana’s file. He flipped through the photographs quickly, trusting Clark to follow along. And indeed, after only a few minutes, Clark said, “That’s not possible. Diana is--you’re telling me she’s a hundred years old?”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I suspect much older than that, actually. I haven’t asked her directly. It seemed...rude.”

“So wait.” Clark held up a hand, and Bruce watched him putting together this new information, watched that agile reporter’s mind leaping from conclusion to conclusion. “I saw on the news, footage of people fighting some kind of monster--you’re part of a secret group of...special people.”

“Gods,” said Bruce. “Legends. Aliens. Scientific wonders. And me.” He shrugged at Clark’s expression. “I’m just a man.”

“Yeah, right,” Clark whispered under his breath, his eyes flicking over the computers. “And I… I help you all,” he said. Still trying to put the puzzle together from the scattered pieces he had. “Do I work down here? Doing your research for you, helping you? Did I go to Gotham and into the battle, was that how I disappeared? Did you tell me not to go, and I went anyway? I think I remember the monster. I remember… I remember pain.” He touched his cheek, the pale scar that still traced across it.

Before he could think better of it, Bruce reached out and touched the unscarred side of Clark’s face with his gloved hand; Clark shuddered slightly. Bruce leaned forward and brought his mouth to the scar marring Clark’s perfect face. “There was a monster,” Bruce whispered.

Then he stepped back and touched the button that illuminated the floodlights on the far side of the bunker.

Clark turned, squinting into the pitiless light, his eyes widening as he took in the two cases. One of them held Robin’s soot-blackened uniform, and the other…

Bruce followed Clark as he stepped over to the case that held the red and blue uniform, still torn and battered. Clark stood before it for an ageless time. Bruce could see his shoulders trembling as he looked at it. When he finally spoke, it was a bare whisper, but Bruce could already hear the change in his voice, the weight of knowledge:

“My suit,” Clark said.

He put out his hand and rested it on the case, feeling cold glass beneath his hand. He could feel Bruce--Batman--Bruce behind him, utterly unmoving. Waiting. He stood for a long time, feeling the last days falling into place in new and different ways.

“Her name’s Diana?” he said once. And then:

“Ma must have told you not to tell me.” And finally:

“A fight. You said we had a fight. Telling the truth even when you lie.”

He could hear the tightness in his voice. There was a whisper of cloth (he remembered that sound now, the hiss of silk on concrete) and Bruce stepped away from him. Clark whirled to face him and Bruce--didn’t flinch, exactly.

“Don’t worry,” Clark snapped. “I don’t have my powers back, only my memories.” He stopped and swallowed, then managed to choke out: “Why? Why did you--”

“When I was a child, I had dreams of flying,” Bruce said abruptly, his voice flat. “We all do, of course. But in mine--it was after my parents died, and in my dreams I was lifted up out of the darkness into light and all my fear and doubt fell away and I soared.” His voice broke, yearning, on the last word. “But when I woke up I was still--just me.” He looked at Clark for a long moment. “In my mind you were everything I wanted to be, everything I couldn’t be--above it all, above fear, above responsibility. So I hated you and I wanted to end you.” He said it with blunt simplicity, as if he had crafted the words in his head a thousand times. “I was wrong, Clark. I was utterly wrong. But that is why.”

Clark stared at him for a long, long moment. Then he threw his arms wide. “You idiot,” he said.

Bruce’s eyebrows went up.

“I knew all that within ten minutes of meeting you,” Clark said, feeling something like a laugh clawing at the back of his throat. “Not all the details, but--I knew, Bruce. Do you think I don’t know what people see in me? Do you think there’s anything I can do about it but keep going, keep trying to save people? Exactly the same way you do?”

He took a step forward and Bruce took a half-step back, but only a half-step. “No, Bruce,” Clark said, “What I want to know is why the...the shrine, the memorial, the damn crypt in my name here?” He pointed upward. “I was right there, alive in your living room! Just how long did you intend on keeping this place a mausoleum to the memory of someone who isn’t even dead?” Another step forward; this time Bruce didn’t move away. “I joked about looking for a hairshirt, and I here I find you’ve been using my memory as one all along.”

Bruce looked at him and shook his head, very slightly; not in negation so much as in disbelief. “I tried to kill you,” he said. “I helped Doomsday kill you.”

Clark smiled, very slightly. “I was only mostly dead, apparently.”

“Don’t joke--” Bruce started to say, and Clark kissed him, very lightly.

Bruce went still. “I couldn’t--” He took a deep breath, looking at Clark. “I couldn’t let you love me when you didn’t know what I’d done.”

“Here’s the interesting thing,” Clark said. “Which is that you don’t get to ‘let’ me love you or not. I just do.”

“I tried to kill you,” Bruce said again.

“Well, that was stupid of you and you didn’t do very well at it. And then you saved my mother, and fought by my side to save the world, and--apparently--did a ton of research about me and fell in love with me after I died, which was also kind of stupid of you, but you seem to have done pretty well at that.”

Bruce was staring at him and Clark wasn’t sure he was making much sense, but their lives didn’t make a whole lot of sense and he just needed to get through to him somehow, cut through that clear glass wall Bruce kept himself sealed inside, batter it down with nonsense and the force of his need, if necessary.

“Come on, Bruce!” Clark said, whirling to go back to the case where his suit was entombed. “Enough with the grief and regret between us, enough of that, we need to just--” Carried away by his own words, he leveled a punch at the case as if to shatter it, break it into a thousand pieces.

His fist slammed into the glass with a dull thud and the case didn’t budge.

“Ow,” said Clark, shaking out his hand. “Ow. Ow.”

“Still no powers, I see,” said Bruce. There was something under his words that wasn’t bitterness or remorse, and at the sound of it Clark’s heart rose.

“That looked much more dramatic in my head,” he said, wincing exaggeratedly and pulling a wry face.

Bruce crossed the room to stand in front of him and took Clark’s hand in his. “I believe if we get you into sunlight you’ll get your powers back. Until then, I think you’re going to have some impressively bruised knuckles.”

He lifted Clark’s aching hand to his lips and kissed the fingers, very gently.

“Let’s get your suit out of the case and then we’ll talk about what you’d like to do next.”

Clark smiled through the pain--he’d felt worse, after all; he remembered now. “I’ve got some ideas about that,” he said.

Yuletide Letter!

2016-09-28T05:55:42Z

It's almost October, and that means Yuletide and time for me to blither on about my favorite fandoms!

First off, if you are my writer, you are amazing and the fandoms you're willing to write for are amazing! You can poke around my Tumblr if you like for a lot of wrestling and other stuff! If we match on NXT, my side Tumblr will probably give you some insight into how I see just about any character on the roster if you rummage through my tags.

Do Not Wants:
--Noncon and rape
--explicit underage
--character death

General Likes:
--Snarky banter
--pining
--angst and fluff (separate or together)
--brothers in arms
--characters being willing to die for each other
--Super-intense, functionally dysfunctional relationships
--I love just about every romantic trope in the book! Amnesia, bodyswap, arranged marriage, pretending to be a couple, handcuffed together, trapped in an elevator, huddling for warmth, truth serums--if any of these spark you, feel free to apply them to the fandoms below!
--I...I may have accidentally developed a thing about wrestlers bleeding on each other during intimate/sexual moments, so if that's your thing too, please indulge!
--Sex-wise I like gen, fade-to-black, and explicit sex, though really raunchy descriptions can be hit-or-miss--write it if you love it but don't force yourself to, basically.
--I love having people get hot and bothered talking/thinking about sex, maybe more than the actual sex, so feel free to draw out the lead-up pretty much interminably if you write a sex scene, I will eat it up with a spoon.

General dislikes:
--I don't need clear and enthusiastic consent at all (I love dubcon) but I want to know all characters involved are enjoying themselves.
--Moodwise I can enjoy the warmest schmoopiest fluff and I also love bittersweet and conflicted--but I like there to be some hope at the end, unrelentingly bleak is not what I want.
--If you're wavering on tense and POV, I generally prefer third person and past tense--but if you love writing present tense and first person, that enjoyment will almost certainly result in a better story, so go for it!

Some other common questions/issues:
--I like holiday stories just fine (A Very NXT or Lucha Christmas? Go for it!);
--I would prefer no mundane or coffee-shop-style AUs for the wrestling fandoms. Keep the wrestlers wrestlers, basically.
--I like my wrestling fic kayfabe-compliant--that is, the wrestlers shouldn’t know how the match is going to go.

Hero from Otherwhere - Jay Williams (Jesse Rosen, Rich Dennison)

(An accurate reflection of my own copy)

How did Jesse and Rich get along after they got back? How do they deal with being best friends when as far as everyone else is concerned they were bitter enemies a half hour ago? If they discover their bond is more intimate than friendship, that's a major bonus, but not necessary.

I requested this obscure YA novel years ago but have requested it again this year because someone found me who was willing to offer/request it, so I am happy in my fandom-of-two! This was a formative book for me with its wonderful main characters who are the best complementary opposites, and its wonderful worldbuilding. I'd love to see more exploration of their friendship after the book, how they negotiate being friends now they're back in the real world with all its complications. I confess I'd love a slashy angle on this one, in which they realize the bond between them goes deeper than friendship, but I'd be perfectly thrilled with a nice friendship story as well. If you do go slashy...um, they're middle school students, so keep it sweet and implicit, nothing too raunchy, please. I’d also love a story where they get dragged back when they’re older and have to team up again!

Lucha Underground - Dario Cueto, Matanza Cueto

Ah, there’s nothing like the brotherly love of a wrestling promoter and his god-possessed brother he keeps locked in the basement, am I right? I am always and forever a sucker for the evil people whose only redeeming quality is that they care about each other, and Dario and Matanza have such a messed up co-dependent relationship, I love it. I’d rather you not go full-on physical incest with them, but I have no problem with there being a creepy overly-intense vibe about their relationship. Some possible ideas:

--Something set when they’re young, perhaps just after Matanza was “sacrificed” to the gods, or just after their mother’s murder.
--Non-sexual hurt/comfort after a match, with Dario freaking out and Matanza being (I assume) pretty stolid about it all. Or flip it and have Dario get thrown through a window; I don’t think Matanza would even be able to process it but it would be interesting to see him try.
--Any reflective piece from Matanza’s POV would be fascinating to read. What does he think of wrestling, or of his opponents? How does he see the world?

NXT - Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Chiampa

Chuck Taylor claims that “the fanfic writes itself” with these two, but this is obviously not true, so it’s kind of up to us, right? I would be happy with just about anything with these two, but here are some ideas:

--Gen road stories, life adapting to NXT and Florida. How did they become a tag team? Was it difficult at first?
--Aftermath from any of their amazing matches this year--against each other in the CWC, against the Revival in Brooklyn, whatever else happens in the fall.
--These two seem made for the hurt/comfort and I would love anything with either of them suffering a bit. Johnny’s the natural for getting hurt, but it would also be cool to see Johnny react to Tommaso being injured.
--If you write something slashy with just the two of them, please just leave Candice out of it entirely, I don’t need (and in fact don’t want) you to break their marriage up or pay lip service to her being fine with it. That said, an enthusiastic threesome would be absolutely fine with me as well. I would be delighted with a story where Tommaso has been pining and feeling on the outside and discovers that he’s included in the honeymoon plans.
--If all else fails, I say throw sex pollen around and see what happens. I bet Ember Moon has some with her.

新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling - Ibushi Kota, Kenny Omega

These two wrestlers have history that goes back well before their time in NJPW, and I’m hoping to make a bunch of gifsets about them this fall and increase the things tagged with them, having scored a DVD of their work. Here are a few other things about them on my primary blog. Basically, they were an adorable tag team but it all went south when Kenny joined the Bullet Club and was forced to betray his former partner, and since then Kenny has been on a villainous rampage to the top while sending Kota desperate sad messages begging him not to join the WWE but to come back to Japan and work with him again, all of which works at both the kayfabe and non-kayfabe levels, and I love them so much. Gaze in wonder at the fact that Kenny has apparently had wrestling tights made from the cloth Kota used at his nude photoshoot. COME ON.

I would love to see any take on Kota’s return to Japan and inevitable confrontation/reconciliation with Kenny, or Kota in Florida trying to make WWE work for him and missing Kenny too much, even though he knows he shouldn’t (my headcanon is that he tapped out in the semifinals of the CWC because he suddenly realized he didn’t give a damn about the WWE). Or Kenny being “FUCK IT ALL” without Kota and committing to a life of comic-book villainy. If you’re comfortable doing it, feel free to set something back when they were teaming up in DDT, when Kenny (who learned Japanese and traveled across the world to team up with him) first arrived and was trying to connect with him. Or Kenny tracking down Kota in the States and helping him cope with culture shock, with or without sexytimes.

Ficlet: A Field of Poppies (DCEU, Steve/Diana)

2016-09-27T05:17:28Z

A Field of Poppies (283 words) by mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, World War I, Post-Canon
Notes: For bradygirl_12's birthday! I wanted to write something Steve/Diana for you, and the movieverse version looks SO good, but so sad, so forgive me for the melancholy tone!

The wind tossed the grass as it raced up the hill to touch Diana. Behind her was the graveyard in which they had put a man she never had a chance to call friend. Beside her was a man she hoped could be a comrade.

Warriors together. It had been a long time.

She gazed out across the field. Clark’s grave had smelled of freshly-dug earth. She remembered barbed wire against the moonlit sky and wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, shivering, though the chill of the wind couldn’t touch her.

“He’s not the first friend you’ve lost,” Bruce said, his voice low.

“You saw the picture,” Diana said. “You know your history.”

She felt Bruce nod. They looked out across the field together in silence.

“I--” Bruce broke off and swallowed hard. “We just met him and now we have to live the rest of our lives without him. It seems so unfair.”

The autumn-golden grass trembled in the wind, and Diana could see scarlet flowers dotting its expanse like drops of blood.

Diana had come back to Paradise Island long ago with handfuls of fine dark seed, had walked the island that spring strewing seed across the fields, silent and alone. That summer the green grasses had shimmered with new flowers, lush and crimson, that her sisters had never seen. “For memory,” Diana had said when they asked why she had brought them, smiling her new sad smile.

The grass tossed in the wind and the poppies bloomed, beautiful and heedless of grief as they did every spring. As they always would.

“It is unfair,” Diana whispered. The wind caught her words and carried them away. “It is always unfair.”

Ficlet: The Code (DC comics, Clark/Bruce)

2016-09-23T11:20:34Z

The Code (497 words) by mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Angst, Oral Sex, Light Dom/sub, Mind Games, Guilt, Punishment, this one is on the dark side
Summary:

Bruce has found ways to deal with his regret and guilt since Clark has come back from the dead.

Clark steps into the room and smiles at Bruce. It’s the smile that lets him know it’s time to slip into code.

It’s a secret code, in which words stand for other words. It’s a private cipher which lets Bruce understand what Clark really means. It’s been this way since Clark came back from beyond, since they began this thing that’s between them now, this thing that gives them both what they need.

When Clark says “I’d like that,” what it means is On your knees. Now.

When he says “Please,” Bruce knows to hear You deserve nothing. You don’t even deserve to serve me like this.

Bruce feels his condemnation like a weight on his shoulders, shoving him to the ground. Clark doesn’t even need to push him down. He only needs to close his eyes, to touch Bruce’s hair--so lightly, so gently, the threat of punishment could almost be in Bruce’s imagination.

Clark’s breath comes faster as Bruce takes him in his mouth. “That’s so good,”</i> Clark murmurs, which means Choke on it or I’ll take your throat in my hands. Bruce feels himself shuddering as the memory of Clark’s gasping, retching breath is replaced by his own.

Hands that could snap his neck without effort tangle in his hair, tugging. Take it all, prove yourself worthy to live. “You’re so good,” groans Clark, and Bruce knows it means You’re worthless. He leans into the task, losing himself in the rhythm of it, letting himself be penetrated and violated (as he had pierced Clark, grinding him into the dust and grime as he tried to ask for help). The code makes this possible, the code is the only thing that lets Bruce feel pleasure in this, that changes it from simple meaningless affection to repentance.

Clark is beyond words now, gasping and sighing, and each broken syllable of delight is a slap across Bruce’s face, a stinging reproach that leaves him hot and burning with a shame so intense it’s close to ecstasy. He lets it roll across him, lifting his mind out of regret and into a sort of white-hot exaltation that he embraces with joy, until his fierce tender ministrations make Clark cry out wildly and spill into his mouth. For a moment there’s nothing but bliss and catharsis far beyond any physical release (he knows later he will remember this moment and the physical release will be there too, but not now, not now). For a moment everything is right.

Clark says his name and Bruce translates it: Betrayer.

Clark whispers “I love you,” and Bruce hears--more precious, more impossible--Someday I may forgive you.

He lies down next to Clark and listens to his breaths deepen into sleep, feels Clark’s arms around him as if he’s cherished. The code makes this all possible, lets him hear the truth beneath Clark’s words.

The code.

Someday, he thinks as sleep claims him too, maybe someday I’ll even tell Clark about it.

A Week of Rain (Chapter 6)

2016-09-12T11:34:00Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 6/8
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Six(2100 words):

Clark stopped short in the doorway, wishing he had kept away, unable to move any further.

The woman was sitting on Bruce’s bed with her bare feet curled underneath her, leaning on one hand. She was wearing black slacks and a loose white shirt that shimmered with silvery designs; her long black hair tumbled down her back. A black leather purse rested next to her. Her free hand was lifted in the air, gesturing angrily at Bruce, who stood facing her, his shoulders lowered and his face guarded. When he saw Clark in the doorway beyond the woman his expression shifted suddenly into alarm, and the woman whirled to stare at Clark.

She was beautiful, of course. But even more than that, she was self-possessed and self-contained, with power in every move she made. There was a regal confidence in the way she carried herself--anyone who Bruce would trust enough to allow into his bedroom, onto his bed, would have to have that kind of comfort and control, Clark thought with involuntary bitterness. Would have to be whole and complete and--

The woman’s face lit up with joy. ”Clark,” she breathed, and launched herself across the wide bed to throw her arms around him.

Clark blinked down at her--she had lifted him up in the air with her hug as if he were a child. She put him down again and cleared her throat. “You...don’t remember me either,” she said, half question and half statement.

“No,” he said, and felt fresh regret tear at his heart. Everything about her was unforgettable, just like Bruce. He looked from her face to Bruce’s and blurted out with abrupt, relieved certainty: “You’re not lovers.”

She laughed, throwing her head back. “Did you think-- Ah, Clark, I’m so sorry,” she said, and kissed his forehead.

“Are you related to Bruce? Is that why I don’t remember you?”

“Not by blood,” she said, throwing a quick smile Bruce’s way. “But he and I are kin of a sort. As are we all.”

Bruce had been smiling fondly at her, but at her last words the smile disappeared. “Diana,” he said warningly, and the air between them seemed suddenly to crackle again, full of tension.

“He should know. You must tell him. You cannot leave him half of himself.”

“Hey,” Clark said, anger seizing him out of nowhere. “I’m not half of anything, I’m myself. Just because I don’t remember some things--”

“--You would turn your back on your heritage, on your power, on your responsibility,” Diana snapped. “Bruce may allow this travesty, but I do not!” Grabbing her purse, she opened it and pulled out--

Sunlight.

No, Clark realized, blinking, it was a cord of some sort, braided of golden rope that seemed to shine like the sun.

“Diana!” Bruce started to move forward, but Diana held up one hand and he stopped, looking frustrated and furious. “This isn’t right, this isn’t natural,” he snarled.

“Nothing is more natural than the truth,” Diana said, and reached out--Clark flinched slightly--to coil the rope around his wrist.

They looked at each other. Clark waited for something dramatic to happen, but nothing did. The rope was just shiny rope, it didn’t burn. He took a careful, relieved breath.

“Who are you?” Diana asked.

Clark almost laughed. “I thought I was the one with amnesia. Clark Joseph Kent.”

“Who are you?” Diana said again, and there was a fierceness in her face that made Clark want to take a step away from her. But that would mean taking a step away from Bruce as well, standing behind her with anguish in his eyes, and Clark wouldn’t do that.

“I told you who I am. I don’t know what you’re trying to make me say, but I don’t remember being anyone else, and tying me up with a piece of pretty sparkly rope isn’t going to change that.”

“A piece of pretty sparkly rope,” Bruce said, and there was a sudden sputter of laughter under the growl of his voice.

Diana didn’t smile, but warmth touched the corners of her eyes as if she couldn’t help it. “Well, it is both pretty and sparkly,” she said.

“And it’s true that he doesn’t remember,” Bruce said. “If he doesn’t remember, he has no other truth to give you.”

Clark tried to shake his hand free, but couldn’t. “Diana, let me give you some truth. I woke up in a ditch, exhausted beyond belief, and all I could remember was that I had to get to Gotham, and that someone called Bruce was important to me. These last few days--” He felt his breath catch. “I needed them. I needed this time for myself, to have a time that was just me, that wasn’t work or--or whatever else I can’t remember.” He stopped, feeling his heart pounding as if at the sound of a thousand distant screams. “I don’t remember Bruce, or you--obviously I didn’t want to remember that part of my life. I don’t know why, but I needed this time without those memories. And I needed this time to find Bruce--the real Bruce, not the one that goes out to parties or makes stupid statements to newspapers. I came here to find him, and I did. And he says I didn’t love him before, and maybe that’s even true, but I love him now.”

Bruce made a small sound and put his hand up as though Clark had tried to hit him.

Clark charged on without taking a breath: “He’s passionate and stubborn and full of secrets and he has extremely sketchy opinions about strawberry shortcake and I love him, Diana, and that is the truth.”

There was a silence in which the only sound was Bruce’s breathing, fast and hard. Diana nodded slowly and released the rope from around his wrist. “It is,” she said, and turned away.

Bruce stepped forward, bristling, glaring at her. “That wasn’t right,” he said.

His fists were clenched, his eyes furious, but Diana responded like a Great Dane facing a kitten: she smiled and shrugged with a fluid nonchalance, uncaring that it looked like this man might take a swing at her. “It was true,” she said. She shook her head at him, almost affectionately. “We’ve talked about this, Bruce. I’m not here to follow your ideas of what’s right. They overlap with mine most of the time. But don’t delude yourself that they always will.”

Bruce continued to glower, his jaw clenched.

“Look,” Clark said after a moment, “I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s a lot going on here I don’t understand.” He rubbed at his wrist where Diana’s rope had been. “And I think it’s pretty obvious you’re not going to tell me what it is.”

Both Diana and Bruce looked at him, and their expressions slowly shifted from “amused” and “belligerent” to matching sheepish looks. It was not an expression that sat easy on their strong faces, and Clark fought an incongruous desire to laugh.

“If you truly wish not to remember,” Diana said, “It is not my place to force knowledge on you. The gods know that I--” She stopped, and something like sympathy touched the corners of her eyes, and a pain that seemed older than her lovely face. “But I believe you will find that your sense of responsibility to the world will outweigh your need for solitude, even if you wish it would not.” She laid a hand along his face, smiling at him. “I look forward to working with you again,” she said. Then she nodded at Bruce. “You’re very lucky,” she said.

Bruce stepped forward and touched his fingers to that golden rope, his eyes bleak and challenging. Then he pulled his hand away. “I can’t,” he said.

“I know,” said Diana.

Bruce lifted his chin. “But I do love him,” he said. “And I don’t need anything to make me say so.”

She kissed his forehead and Bruce browed his head beneath her touch as if receiving a benediction. “I doubt he did either, Bruce.”

When she was gone--there was no car Clark could see, she simply walked out and vanished into the curtains of rain as if they couldn’t touch her--Clark grimaced at Bruce. “Can you stop talking about me as if I weren’t here now?”

“I’m sorry,” said Bruce. He sat down heavily on the couch, looking at his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“And I do love you, and nothing made me say that.”

Bruce was still looking at his hands. “Take a walk with me?” he said.

“I’ll go anywhere with you,” Clark said, and Bruce’s mouth crooked into something close to smile, but with sadness in its lines.

They walked through a grove of trees, the rain drumming on their umbrellas, the air full of the scent of bracken and decaying leaves, rich and loamy. At the edge of the grove a huge oak tree loomed before them, and Clark could see beyond it the marble walls of the mausoleum, overgrown with ivy and shadows.

Bruce stopped and put his hand on the trunk of the tree, his long fingers caressing the wet and lichen-crusted bark. “I used to climb this tree all the time,” he said.

He dropped his umbrella and jumped up to catch the lowest branch, swinging up with an agility that made Clark’s eyebrows rise. He clambered up until he was well above the ground, sitting down on a wide branch. Looking down, he beckoned to Clark.

Clark followed more slowly, his movements clumsy and unsure on the rain-slippery bark, but eventually he ended up sitting next to Bruce. The rain beat down on them, plastering Bruce’s hair to his head, though he didn’t seem to notice. Clark had a thousand questions he wanted to ask about the relationship between Bruce, and Diana, and himself, but he didn’t know where to start (some kind of secret society? Like the Illuminati? Craziness). So he sat in the tree, surrounded by the pattering of rain on leaves, and simply waited. The mausoleum was behind them, brooding in its silence. The burned and desolate Manor was to their right hand. And in front of them at the foot of the hill, the lake quivered in the rain, the lake house a glass box on the shore.

“This is what I am,” Bruce said. “Look at that lake house, Clark. There’s nothing in it. It’s all a show and a sham, a diorama of an empty life. I hurt you, before. I love you, too. But maybe that’s not enough.” His hair was dripping, his eyes far away.

“That lake house isn’t all you are,” Clark retorted. “Just like that mausoleum behind us isn’t all you are. There’s something beneath it, I know. There’s something real beneath it.” Surprise touched with amusement flickered across Bruce’s face as Clark went on: “And it’s possible love isn’t enough. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

He kissed the side of Bruce’s face, feeling cold rain on his lips. Bruce didn’t turn to kiss him back, but he didn’t pull away, either. After a long moment, he sighed.

“Alfred always used to make me hot chocolate when I went wandering off in the cold. Shall we go back and I’ll see if I can figure out how to do it on my own?”

As it turned out, Clark remembered how to make hot chocolate better than Bruce did.

Clark woke up on the couch from a confused dream of green and gold light, his wrist oddly warm where Diana’s rope had encircled it. Had there been voices calling him in the dream?

Responsibility. Duty. Solitude. Love. He looked out at the lake, still and quiet in the dark, its surface barely touched by the misty rain. Something beneath.

Shrugging on his jeans and a sweater, he went out into the night, climbing the long hill to the waiting Manor once more.

The silence felt...different, this time. Not brooding, but waiting. Anticipating. A breathless quiet.

He touched the blackened marble mantel above the fireplace, feeling soot gritty beneath his fingers. There were two scorched chess pieces there as well: a black knight on its side and a white pawn. Clark went to touch them, then drew his fingers back.

Beside the fireplace was a grandfather clock, its hands melted and bent, pointing to no time and every time. Clark reached out and rested his hand on its case.

And at his touch the clock swung open, revealing stairs leading down into darkness.

Fic: A Marvel of Kryptonian Design

2016-09-04T17:28:41Z

A Marvel of Kryptonian Design (2614 words) by mithen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Sex Toys, Sex Toys Under Clothing, Semi-Public Sex, Butt Plugs
Summary:

Superman arrives at the Fortress to find Batman designing something from Kryptonian crystal. It isn't quite what he expected, but he's willing to have a little fun with it.

Superman sighed with relief as the crystal struts of his Arctic hideaway loomed up around him once more, their icy depths filled with dancing lights and their silvery alien vibrations shivering in the air. It was strange--as a Kansan boy, you’d think he’d find the unearthly Fortress off-putting. But instead, it felt strangely soothing. Maybe it was his Kryptonian DNA asserting itself.

“So, what did Constantine say?”

Or maybe, Clark thought as he came into the main hall of the now-inaccurately-named Fortress of Solitude and saw Batman sitting in front of one of the monitors, his fingers dancing across the alien design with unconscious grace, maybe it was that the Fortress had felt like home ever since Batman had started spending so much time there.

No crystalline tech could be more incomprehensible than Bruce Wayne, after all. Or more beautiful.

Clark dropped a kiss on the back of Bruce’s neck where the cowl was pulled down; Bruce swatted at his hand in absent-minded annoyance, scowling at the monitor. “Constantine told me to piss off,” Clark said.

“Oh, he must have been in a good mood,” said Bruce, “or he’d have told you to fuck off.”

“He must have been, because he did take the book and say he might take a look at it and see if he could decipher it if he had time.”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “He must have been in a very good mood.”

“I hope he doesn’t just throw it in a shredder,” Clark said. “So what have you been working on?”

Bruce tapped the screen with a quick flourish like a trilled arpeggio. “Crystalline 3D modeling,” he said. “Dick was looking into improvements to his escrima sticks and I was wondering if it were possible to come up with a Kryptonian crystal version that would absorb shock better. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I’m still getting used to the Fortress computers and it seemed like a good pragmatic project to--”

There was a sweet, high-pitched chime, followed by the serene, neutral voice of the Fortress saying, “Your schematics are complete, tynth-ze.” Clark couldn’t help smiling as he always did when he heard the Fortress address Bruce with the title that meant “mate of the master.” He’d tried to teach it not to, but Bruce had huffed a bit and said he didn’t mind that much.

“Holographic display on,” the Fortress went on. Bruce snapped “Belay that!” a second after, but a shimmering image made of light sprang into the air in the middle of the hall.

Clark looked at the image for a long moment as it revolved slowly in the air. “That,” he finally said, “is not an escrima stick.”

“It...is not,” Bruce said, his voice flat.

“I may be imagining things,” said Clark, “But it looks remarkably like a…”

An uncomfortable pause in which Bruce did not finish Clark’s sentence. The shimmering image hanging in front of them did a full rotation.

“...a butt plug,” Clark finally said.

“I suppose it does.”

“A butt plug made of Kryptonian crystal.”

Bruce nodded thoughtfully, watching it instead of Clark’s face. “I was...curious,” he said. “I wasn’t going to actually make it, you know,” he added, a trifle defensively.

It was Clark’s turn to nod, watching the crystal plug spin slowly in the air. “You could, though.” He felt rather than saw Bruce’s head turn suddenly to look at him. “I mean, the Fortress could. The design seems sound.”

“Of course it is,” Bruce huffed.

“I’d just add a small detail.” Clark tapped on one of the screens and the crystal glowed briefly. “There. Kryptonian crystals, of course, resonate at some very specific and unusual frequencies. This one can be made to sync up with the pleasure centers of a person’s brain and stimulate them directly.”

“That sounds...intense,” Bruce said, shifting from foot to foot.

“Oh, only at the right signal. Say, a sound at a frequency that humans can’t detect--and only Kryptonians can produce.”

Bruce looked sideways at Clark. “An intriguing use of alien technology.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Clark said cheerfully. “Imagine having that firmly in place, giving you occasional jolts of pure pleasure that seem to light up your body and your brain at once, blotting out every other thing in the world.”

Bruce made a thoughtful noise.

“Imagine the sensation ratcheting higher and higher, cascading until you could hardly speak clearly. But you wouldn’t be able to actually come, you’d just feel obliterated by pleasure until all you wanted to do was beg for more, until you finally couldn’t stand it and--”

“--I could handle it,” Bruce said with finality.

“Oh?” said Clark. He wasn’t exactly sure where this conversation was going, but he was fairly sure he liked all of the possibilities.

“I didn’t spend years learning esoteric meditation techniques to get broken down by some alien sex toy.”

Well then. “You wouldn’t last a half hour,” Clark said, and Bruce’s eyes gleamed. “You’d be begging for sweet mercy long before then.”

“You want to bet?”

“As a matter of fact...” said Clark.

“You’re on,” said Bruce. “The loser has to have monitor duty with Flash next rotation.”

“High stakes,” Clark mused. “But I accept.”

Bruce held up a black-gloved finger, all brisk business. “A few terms. First: not as Batman, only as Bruce.”

Clark glared. “How unprofessional do you think I am? And you’ll need a safeword of sorts, in case you truly need to cut the games short. ‘Banana muffin’?”

Bruce looked thoughtful. “Blurting that out in the middle of a social function might be a little--”

Clark felt his eyebrows go up. “We’re doing this in public?”

A wicked smile. “What? Don’t you like the idea of watching me be ravished by pleasure at your command while surrounded by people who have no idea what’s going on?” Bruce looked at Clark’s expression and chuckled. “I thought so. Let’s go with ‘the night is young’ for a safeword. It’s something Brucie might plausibly say but you’ll know means for whatever reason I need my head clear and my wits about me.”

“And what about an ‘uncle’ phrase?” Clark said hastily, before he could spend too much time thinking about Bruce allowing Clark to more or less have sex with him in public. “How will I know when you’ve given up?”

“I won’t.”

Clark rolled his eyes. “You will. The question is just whether you last thirty minutes or not.”

Bruce crossed his arms and looked mulish.

“Bruce.”

“Okay, okay. How about… ‘I need to go,’ which we would understand--hypothetically, since I’m not going to say it--actually meant ‘I need to come.’”

“All right,” Clark said. “‘I need to go,’ got it. So...when are we going to do this?”

Bruce considered for a moment. “How soon can the Fortress finish creating our toy?”

Clark felt an absurd delight at that ‘our,’ but tried not to show it too obviously. Bruce’s fond smile hinted that maybe he had failed. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

“Bruce Wayne’s got a fundraiser in seven hours,” Bruce said. “So let’s get a move on.”

Bruce tugged the tail of his tuxedo and shifted from foot to foot in the meeting room. Outside the room he could hear the chatter of the party starting to pick up. Almost time to start pressing the flesh.

“Is it uncomfortable?” Clark Kent asked. Lately he’d taken to dressing in what Bruce liked to call “utterly failed hipster mode” for his civilian disguise: suspenders, a bow tie, a trilby, the works. The results were intentionally hilarious (and in Bruce’s opinion, unintentionally and paradoxically sexy).

“It’s fine,” Bruce said quickly. In retrospect, he might have slightly overestimated just how much Kryptonian crystal he was comfortable having in a very intimate place, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. The pressure kept the sensation just intrusive enough to be enjoyable, without distracting too much.

“Let’s see how it feels activated,” said Clark, and with no further warning pursed his lips almost imperceptibly.

Bruce didn’t hear anything, but the edges of his vision grayed out as a pulse of pure pleasure seemed to jolt through his entire body before settling into a low, throbbing hum of sensation. “Oh,” he said, struggling to keep his expression neutral. “Okay. Yes. I felt that.”

“That’s the lowest setting,” Clark said, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Right,” said Bruce. He took a few deep breaths and centered himself, letting the sensation become part of his reality, adjusting. He could do this. Thirty minutes. “Well. Let’s get started.”

He threw open the door and went out into the party, smiling and nodding, shaking hands, Clark trailing behind him.

“Mr. Wayne!” cooed Lavinia Wordsworth, influential patron of the arts, holding out her hand for him to kiss. Bruce bent over it--and as he did his brain whited out with pleasure so intense it made his knees go weak.

“Ahhhhhhh it’s so nice to see you again, Lavvie!” he managed, hoping his voice didn’t sound too breathless as he straightened up. The throb at the base of his spine was settling into an insistent shivering static at the edges of his consciousness. Deep breaths. He shot Clark a glare as Lavinia asked him about funding a library; Clark smiled back at him innocently. Just say the word and admit you can’t take it.

Like hell, Bruce telegraphed back.

Time for some civic-minded speeches; Bruce settled gingerly in his chair, grateful it was well-padded. The motion still nudged the smooth crystal deeper into his body, and Bruce felt his eyes flutter shut for a moment as it seemed to set off little electrical sparks all through him. God, that was good. He found his muscles clenching more tightly and forced himself to relax. All you have to do is say ‘I have to go,’ and soon you’ll be coming harder than you ever have in your life, he remembered Clark saying. He tried not to think about it, tried not to wonder when the hell Clark was going to up the frequency again, give him the next jolt of bliss that would obliterate everything in the room, damn it, Clark, why are you making me wait so long for the next one?

Bruce looked at his watch. It had been four minutes. Damn.

Clark saw Bruce glance at his watch and didn’t even try to hide his smirk. He waited another three minutes, watching Bruce try not to squirm, then made the soft, high sound that would up the intensity just a bit more.

Bruce sighed and sagged into his chair, his slightly closed eyes the only hint that he was currently experiencing pleasure at a level that would reduce most humans to babbling and pleading. Unfortunately for him, Lavinia Wordsworth, sitting next to him, decided to take this as a cue to speak to him.

“These speeches are a bit tedious, aren’t they, Mr. Wayne?” she said, leaning solicitously close to him and keeping her voice at a murmur. “I can tell you’re rather bored.”

“Oh,” said Bruce. “Uh, no. I’m not bored at all.” He took a deep breath, his eyes glassy. “I’m just...my mind was wandering a little.”

Clark decided now was as good a time as any to nudge the pleasure level slightly higher.

“Oh God,” Bruce said, biting his lip. His face was flushed and he was sweating slightly, and Clark felt his own jolt of pleasure at the sight of Bruce being debauched in public at his command. Letting Clark affect him like this.

“You seem to be in distress,” Lavinia said, concerned.

“I’m fine. It’s good.” Bruce managed a smile for her; a smile which went lopsided and loopy as Clark triggered the machine again. “It’s really good,” he breathed.

Lavinia shook her head indulgently: playboy Bruce Wayne, drunk in public again. “Do you need to go?” she asked. “You don’t need to stay if you’re not feeling well.”

“I need…” Bruce’s mouth fell open slightly as he struggled, and Clark’s arousal surged higher, watching him try to put aside what had to be a ravening need for release. “I need to...to...have a drink of water,” he finished in a rush, grabbing a glass and gulping at it.

As he put down the glass, he turned and looked at Clark, a gaze that hit Clark like a bolt of pure electricity: Look at me, his eyes said. Look at my face as you fuck me in front of every one of these people and see what you do to me.

Lavinia Wordsworth was bored, and Bruce Wayne was--as usual--a rather tedious conversational partner. Oh, a nice boy, no doubt of that, but numb as a hake, as her father always used to say.

He shifted in his seat now, squirming like a naughty child, and hummed something tuneless under his breath.

“Mr. Wayne,” she said, mildly scolding, “You should pay better attention.”

“It’s very difficult,” he said, his voice thick. “I have a lot on my mind, you know, and--” He broke off and seemed to take a moment to collect his thoughts. “Uh. God.” He swallowed hard and went on in a rush, “I really really really am having a hard time staying focused right now, and I’m not exactly complaining, but--uh huh, yes, okay,” he said quickly, then fell silent, breathing rapidly in little gasping breaths, his eyes half-closed. Lavinia wasn’t sure any longer if he was drunk or in actual pain.

“Mr. Wayne,” Lavinia said, “If you’re not well, you don’t need to stay here. You can just--”

“I have to go,” Bruce blurted out, and Lavinia was startled to hear that reporter a few seats away say it at exactly the same time, his voice breaking.

“I have to go too,” Clark Kent repeated, jumping to his feet with his cheeks flushed, and now Lavinia was slightly alarmed, because whatever bug Bruce Wayne had seemed to be contagious. The two of them made their way to the door with unseemly--nearly preternatural--haste, and Lavinia Wordsworth was left to murmur in amazement to her remaining neighbor, “Brucie’s always leaving early, but this time must be close to a record.” Looking at her watch, she added, “It’s only been thirty minutes!”

Flash zipped around the monitor room, chattering happily. “Gosh, Supes, it’s great of you to come in and do monitor duty with Batman and I,” he said.

“To be honest, Superman is only here because he lost a bet with me,” Batman said, earning himself a glare from Superman.

“A bet? The Big Blue Boy Scout, a betting man? I never would have thought it,” Flash said.

“I didn’t lose,” Superman said sternly. “It was a tie. But in the spirit of fair play, I thought I’d treat it as a loss.”

Flash thumped him on the back. “Well anyway, I appreciate it. I have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to hours of sitting around with Mr. Gloomy McGrumpyson.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Superman with a small smile. “I’ve spent some time sitting around with Batman that I’ve found truly enjoyable.”

Flash looked at Batman doubtfully. Batman stared back at him without expression, and Flash decided to drop the topic. “So…” he asked instead, peering at the schematics on the computer screen. “What are you working on?”

“A device that emits sounds at frequencies only perceptible to Kryptonians,” Batman said. “It can be carried unobtrusively in the hand, or clipped to a belt.”

“I...guess that might come in useful someday,” said Flash, although he wasn’t sure how exactly.

“I do hope so,” grinned Superman.

A Week of Rain, Chapter 5

2016-08-25T23:04:58Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 5/?
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Five (2500 words):

There was no formal pathway from the lake house to the Manor, but the way was easy to find: a well-trodden trail through the grass, through groves of poplar trees shivering in the moonlight. A circuit Bruce had clearly walked many times. Clark imagined him striding along, coat flapping in the breeze on winter days, his shadow falling across the masses of tangled touch-me-nots in late summer. Clark glimpsed marble walls between the trees to the right: a mausoleum of some sort. He passed that by with a respectful nod and kept walking.

The Manor loomed against the starry sky like an enchanted castle in a fairy tale, ruined ramparts touched with silver. Clark pushed his way up the hill, thistles snatching at his borrowed clothing as if to warn him off, and found himself on the threshold at last.

Cinders crunched under his feet as he stepped across it and into the Manor.

Moonlight shone down through the shattered rafters; glass crunched under his feet. He was in the ruins of a great hall, a crumbling corpse still dressed with the remnants of finery: a corner of a charred Persian rug under his feet, tapestries with scorch marks emblazoned up them, the loose threads picked by birds to make their nests now. Had there been balls here? Had Bruce’s parents waltzed together under the chandelier that now leaned drunkenly, a scattering of crystal drops under it like frozen tears? The fire had been recent, Clark remembered: had Bruce had lovers here? Had he run up this charred staircase, the marble blackened with smoke, to usher someone to his bed? Clark put his hand on the balustrade, feeling the stone cold and unyielding under his hand, as if no human touch could ever warm it. How long had it been since laughter had rung through these halls? And what immolation had left it nothing but ash and cinders?

The silence of the Manor was different from the silence of the lake house. The lake house was empty in its stillness, but the Manor’s silence was full. Full of pain, full of grief and suffering and happy memories turned to ash, full of…

The sound of wings.

Clark whirled as the silence was--not broken, but somehow completed by the whisper of dozens of near-soundless wings. A cloud of bats whirred by his head, brushing his hair with a chaos of dark motion. He stopped still, waiting, unmoving, letting them pass around him like a river and pour upward through the crumbling roof into the sky. He looked up after them, feeling something tug at him imperiously, demanding. The sky, the stars, the wind--what was it he wanted?

He turned from the sweeping, gutted staircase with a sigh, letting his hand fall from the balustrade--and with no warning at all found himself face to face with a dark figure, crouched in the shattered window, nothing but a gleam of eyes within the darkness to tell Clark it was human at all.

The silence seemed to thicken, waiting, and Clark knew with a sudden lunatic certainty that if the figure were to speak, it would be with the voice of a forgotten nightmare.

Batman stared at the sight of Clark Kent at the foot of the Manor staircase, his eyes wide and his face pale, and felt a rush of ludicrous gratitude that the mask hid the shock in his own eyes.

“Who--” Clark started to say, and fell silent again.

You’re so young, the thought came to him so strongly that for a moment he thought he’d said it out loud. How had he not seen how young this man was, how had he not seen the uncertainty and earnestness in his eyes? He’d been blinded by his own assumptions, blinded by a costume and a cape into seeing a godling instead of a man struggling to use his power wisely.

Just as the awe and fear in Clark’s eyes at this moment revealed he was seeing a figment from a nightmare rather than a paranoid fool who didn’t know hope when it stood in front of him and tried to ask him for help.

“Wait--” Clark put out a hand, but Bruce didn’t pause to see if he would dare to step towards him (of course he would, even powerless and alone, of course he would confront his demon) before he was swinging onto the roof, into the third floor ruins, sure footed and certain, knowing each broken floorboard and shattered tile as well as he knew his own heart. Fleeing.

He waited until he saw, from one of the fractured windows, Clark Kent give up his search and push his way back through the weeds toward the lake house.

Then he slipped back into the ruins and through the door in the grandfather clock into the cave complex, back to the disguise and the mask that would give him a few more hours of peace with the man he had tried to murder.

It was no good using the secret door into the lake house; Clark was unlikely to accept Bruce appearing as if by magic in his own bedroom. So he drove the Bentley from the cave around and back to the lake house, feeling foolish and false, his heart hammering at the mere prospect of seeing Clark again. Damned fool. He made his way toward the lake house, letting his steps weave and sway, the picture of a tipsy philanthropist.

Clark met him at the door, still pale, and Bruce’s heart turned over at the sight of him. “Bruce,” he said, “There was something-- Someone in the ruins of the Manor.”

“In the what?” Bruce had had time to think about his response: he let shock and some level of reproach fill his voice at this trespass.

“I’m sorry,” said Clark, his glance falling. “I-- went to the Manor. It wasn't raining, and I wanted to see-- I’m sorry.”

“That’s--that’s all right,” Bruce said, as if mustering forgiveness. “It’s just… it’s condemned, you know? It’s dangerous.”

“There was someone there.” Clark’s hands waved in the air, tracing the shape. “Some kind of…man in black. Like a shadow.”

“Someone’s living in the Manor?” Bruce narrowed his eyes, alarmed.

“I don’t think anyone’s living there, no. It felt...empty. But there was someone there, Bruce, I swear it!”

“Hey, hey. I believe you.”

“He was familiar,” Clark said, and Bruce felt the world spin to a halt. “I...remember him from somewhere.”

Bruce forced a laugh. “How is that possible?”

“I think he was there when I went missing. In that time I don’t remember. He was wearing a cape and cowl. All in black.”

“Ah.” With that much of a description, there was no denying-- “I think you’ve spotted the elusive Batman, Clark.”

For a moment, Clark’s eyes were wary and uncertain. “What?”

“I know, it’s a silly name. An urban legend. A guy who dresses up as a bat and fights crime in Gotham. Some people say they’ve spotted him, and a lot of people said he was there on the day you went missing.”

“What the hell was he doing in Wayne Manor?”

Bruce shrugged. “It did burn down under suspicious circumstances. It’s possible he’s been trying to find out more about it. It’s just the kind of random thing a freak like that would get obsessed with,” Bruce said, letting bitterness seep into his voice.

“Have you ever run into him before?”

Bruce was suddenly very glad Alfred wasn’t there to raise an eyebrow at him. “I’ve never had the honor,” he said sarcastically.

“He was…” Clark shook his head. “Terrifying. Primal. Chthonic.” Bruce felt his eyebrows go up against his will. “Like…something from the underworld.”

“I know what chthonic means, thank you.”

Clark ignored his acerbic tone, his eyes far away. “He seemed like the only real thing in the world. Everything else...faded out. Even me.”

“Hey,” Bruce said, unnerved at the look in his eyes. “Hey, you’re real. We’re both real.” He squeezed Clark’s hands--when had he reached out and taken them in his? He didn’t remember.

Clark’s eyes focused on his and Bruce wanted to take a step back, but held his ground. “You make me feel real again,” Clark said. He lifted Bruce’s hands and pressed them to his heart. “This is real.”

None of their battle had hurt like this. Nothing Superman had ever done to Batman felt as agonizing as stepping away from Clark Kent felt to Bruce Wayne at that moment. “You don’t understand what you’re saying,” Bruce said.

Clark frowned. “I might not remember it, but I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, I know it.” He shook his head as if in wonder. “Bruce. I’ve been here for three days now. I’ve talked to you. I’ve heard the passion in your voice and seen the intelligence in your eyes. I’ve met the person who cares for you more than anyone else in the world. I’ve read your books.” He lifted his hands to take in the lake house, barren and gleaming in the dark. “And I’ve felt how lonely this place is. If this place is your heart, it’s empty. If the Manor is your heart, it’s broken. And I don’t believe either of those are true. No matter what our past is, whether we were friends or lovers, whether we’d quarreled or not, I’ve come to truly know you now, and your heart isn’t empty or broken, it’s full of passion and intensity and purpose, and I--” He faltered, looking, for a moment, very young and uncertain. Then he took a breath and went on: “and I love it, Bruce. I love y--”

“--You don’t,” Bruce said, and found himself taken aback at the pain in his own voice. “Clark, you have to believe me. Whatever there was between us before you--before you were gone, please believe me that you would have been appalled to hear what you’re saying right now. You’d be horrified to know you were claiming to love someone like me. And someday you’re going to get your memory back, and when that happens…” He heard his voice stagger to a halt for a second. “When that happens you’ll look at me and all that trust and hope in your eyes will be gone, and you’ll say, ‘Why did you lie to me? And why did you let me say those lies to you?’”

Clark laughed. “You idiot,” he said. “Every time you push me away, every time you insist I don’t know what I’m doing, you only prove even more that you’re a good man who actually cares about me. If you were half as horrible as you claim, you’d have grabbed the opportunity and gotten me into bed with you while I was still deluded.”

“Maybe I don’t want you,” Bruce said.

Clark reached out and hooked his fingers into Bruce’s collar. “Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me that you don’t want me.” He tugged slightly. “Tell me you don’t want to strip the clothes right off me and do delightfully obscene things to me, you don’t want to make me scream your name, you don’t want to get off on the sounds I’d make while I came. Tell me that.”

Bruce felt his throat move against Clark’s fingers as he swallowed. He looked into Clark’s avid eyes and couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Clark let go of his shirt with such suddenness that Bruce stumbled backwards a step. “None of that is lies and you know it,” he said. “But that’s all right. Because whatever dance you need to do, Bruce, I’ll do it. Maybe you even believe some of the lies you’re telling yourself. Maybe you even believe you’re not in love with me.”

“I was not in love with you before you disappeared,” Bruce said, putting every shred of authenticity he could into it. It was even possible this was true, he told himself. It was hard to perfectly separate out all the different contradictory things he had felt that night. It was possible love hadn’t been one of them.

“Whatever dance you need, Bruce,” said Clark, and turned away.

There was a patter against the windows, abrupt as stones being thrown, but neither of them flinched. The rain had started again.

You're an investigative journalist. Figure it out. Clark wrapped the blanket more tightly around him on the couch and picked at the information he had: the jumble of hints and clues and evidence and memories he had access to. Trying to make it all fit together, to find the truth. That was what journalists were supposed to do. Bruce Wayne, Clark had concluded, was not a fundamentally truthful man. That didn’t mean he wasn’t honest or trustworthy. But Clark could tell that Bruce and the truth had a complicated relationship. Still, there were moments when something Clark said seemed to strike the truth in Bruce, like a tuning fork suddenly resonating. It was a start.

There was something between us--probably something physical--but he didn’t think it was love. After I went missing, he realized it was, but it was too late. Until I showed up at his door and forced him to face how he felt. Obviously they had parted on bad terms. Had Clark wanted more from their relationship than the sheerly physical? Had they argued?

Clark listened to the rain beat down, a long slow shimmer of sound, and realized he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember what had happened. He thought again about the touch of Bruce’s lips on his before he left that evening--tentative, uncertain. Gentle. Maybe it was for the best that they start again anew. Because he was going to start again with Bruce. He wasn’t going to give up. There’d be no regrets this time.

His last thought as he fell asleep was that he hadn’t followed up on the strange “Batman” in the ruins of the Manor.

Another mystery.

A strange, haunting wail jolted him awake in the pale gray of a drizzling misty morning. He lay on the couch, his heart hammering, until it came again and he realized: a loon. There were other birds singing just outside the windows, taking advantage of the lessening of the rain to court their mates, mark their territory.

Clark rose, rubbing at his eyes--then froze when he realized he could hear voices from Bruce’s bedroom.

A woman’s voice.

It was vibrant and authoritative, with a lilting accent to it that he couldn’t place. He caught the words “sentiment” and “duty.”

Then Bruce snapped, loud enough that Clark could actually hear him: “Diana, don’t lecture me about duty or responsibility--mine or anyone else’s. He gave his life to--”

Without thinking, goaded by the anguish he heard running under Bruce’s words, Clark came around the corner.

To find a woman sitting on Bruce’s bed as though she belonged there.

A Week of Rain (Chapter 4)

2016-08-14T17:13:40Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Three (2200 words):

Thunder rolled again as Clark reveled in the feel of Bruce’s mouth against his, the scrape of stubble against his jaw, the faint tastes of mint and whisky. It felt real, it felt right, it felt like what he’d been walking toward and yearning for since he woke up in the moonlight days ago.

And for a moment, for just a moment, Bruce’s hands clutched his collar and pulled him closer.

But then Bruce was rolling off the bed and to his feet. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Why are you lying to me?” Clark yelled. “I know we weren’t friends.”

Bruce went very still, and there was something stricken and pained in his eyes. “Clark,” he said.

“I came in because you were screaming, and I couldn’t-- And then I remembered-- for just a second, I remembered--” Clark broke off, feeling his hands groping in the air in front of him, as if he could grab the memory back out of the air. “Like a lightning-flash, I remembered. You holding me down, your hands on me, your face there in front of me, my heart pounding--”

Bruce was staring at him. Half of his face was hidden in shadows, the other half lit by the light from the hall. That was familiar too, somehow.

“We weren’t friends,” Clark repeated. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Did you think I wouldn’t be able to figure it out?” He took a breath and plunged on before he could think better of it: “We were lovers, weren’t we?”

Bruce’s eyes widened as if Clark had slapped him and he made a hoarse noise that was half laugh and all pain. “What?”

“You almost had a breakdown when I showed up, Bruce. You could hardly stand up, you were so overwhelmed. You know so much about me. For God’s sake, you’ve got my mother’s number!” Clark took a step forward and Bruce took one back in perfect mirror of him. “And Bruce. The way you look at me. It’s not-- You look at me like something beautiful and cherished and lost. Not...like a friend. Not at all.”

“Clark.” Bruce’s voice was ragged. “You’re wrong.”

Clark shook his head. “Not about the way you look at me. Not about the way you just kissed me.” He stepped forward again, and Bruce took another step away from him. “Not about the way I feel for you.”

“You don’t feel that way,” Bruce said. “You’re confused.”

“I am not confused,” Clark snapped. “My body remembers the feel of yours against it. It knows the touch of your hands.”

Bruce closed his eyes and turned his head away; Clark saw him swallow hard in the dim light. “Oh God,” he whispered, almost too low to hear.

“Let me learn you again,” Clark said. “I want to know you again. I don’t know you, but I know you. I know that you’re beautiful and brave and broken, and I want--I want--” His voice faltered and vanished into a quiet that was full of flickering lightning and the sound of distant thunder. “You’re mine, Bruce,” he whispered. “I can see it in your eyes. Let me be yours again.”

“You were never mine, Clark,” said Bruce, flat and harsh, and Clark knew he should take that as a rejection, and yet his heart leapt.

He hadn’t denied the other assertion.

“Just--” Clark sat down slowly on the bed, as if Bruce was a wild animal that he could scare away if he moved too suddenly. “You thought I was dead, and now I’m here. We had something together, before.”

“We had nothing.”

“That’s a lie,” Clark snarled. “I don’t remember much, but I remember being with you in the dark, my heart pounding.” He couldn’t put it into words, exactly, but he remembered the intimacy of it, their bodies locked together. “I remember thinking how beautiful you were.”

A startled, hoarse laugh. “No.”

“Half of your face was in shadow, like it is now,” Clark said. “But I could see the other half clearly, and I knew it was beautiful.” He looked up at Bruce, who had closed his eyes. “Please, Bruce. I just want to get to know you again. I want to touch you again. I want--” Need rose up in him like a wave, dizzying, and he stammered, “I want you to touch me, Bruce.”

Bruce’s hands clenched at his sides and he took a step back.

“It’s not fair,” Clark said desperately. “It’s not fair that you remember and I don’t. You know the sounds I make under your hands, you know what my face looks like when I--”

“God,” Bruce said, his voice ragged with pain and a yearning that made Clark’s breath come faster.

“Teach me again, Bruce,” said Clark.

Bruce took a deep breath, then another. “If you won’t get off my bed, I’ll just sleep on the couch,” he said.

“You can’t deny how you feel forever,” Clark said. “You can’t deny yourself happiness forever, Bruce.”

Bruce laughed, and there was a sharp metallic edge to it. He leveled a finger at Clark. “You,” he said, “have no idea how long I can deny myself.”

And then he turned and left Clark alone in his bedroom.

Bruce woke up slowly, feeling leather against his face. Had he fallen asleep in the cave again? No, he was on the couch, one hand dangling off and--

Bruce froze as he felt his fingers brush against soft hair.

Slowly, carefully, he moved to peer over the edge of the couch. There on the floor, curled up on a blanket, was Clark Kent. His back was against the couch as if he were guarding Bruce from something, as if he just wanted to be close.

He was smiling.

Bruce watched his sleeping face for a long moment. Slowly he became aware that the dim rainy light of the last few days had given way to weak and cloudy sunlight. There was a square of pale light on the floor, brightening and dimming as the cloud cover thinned and thickened. It inched toward Clark Kent’s sleeping face as Bruce watched. Soon it would touch him, would bathe him in sunlight. Would the scar on his face fade away with its caress? When Clark’s eyes opened once more, would Bruce see memory in them?

What else would he see, he wondered as the square of sunlight crept closer.

When it was just a few feet from Clark’s face, Bruce quietly got up and closed the drapes, and the bright patch vanished.

He came back and lay down on the couch, still watching Clark’s sleeping face. Outside, the sunlight weakened and faltered, the clouds rolling in again. Soon Bruce could hear the first drops of rain pattering down, cutting them off from the world once more.

He closed his eyes and let the sound wash over him. One hand trailed off the sofa’s edge as he drowsed.

At some point, he felt Clark’s fingers intertwine with his, felt his breath almost stop. They lay there together, fingers touching, not speaking. As if, as long as they didn’t look at each other, this could continue.

And it did, until Alfred arrived with breakfast.

“I thought Mr. Kent might be getting a touch of cabin fever,” Alfred explained as Clark wolfed down his third English muffin. “Cooped up here in the gloom, after all, sir,” he said with a look at Bruce that seemed a touch reproachful.

“That was kind of you,” Clark said, picking up one of the books Alfred had brought. “But I’m not bored at all, honestly. Bruce is endlessly entertaining.”

“Oh is he,” Alfred said, looking at Bruce.

Bruce, however, showed no sign of taking the bait. He was staring at his tablet, frowning.

“Is the news bad, sir?” said Alfred, all traces of mockery gone in an instant.

“Falcone’s up to something,” Bruce muttered. “That’s three executions of major rival bosses in the last two weeks.” His face was grim and serious, and Clark felt a giddy wave of something that was part deja vu and all lust go over him. Bruce bit at a knuckle, looking concerned. “I’m going to have to go out tonight,” he muttered. Then he looked up and suddenly seemed to remember Clark was there; the sternness gave way to a bright smile, “--because there’s a big charity ball that I absolutely promised I would go to. I’m so sorry, Clark.”

“Do I get to spend the day with you?”

Bruce looked at him and for a moment naked hunger flickered in his eyes, as if his momentary seriousness had made it even harder to hide his desire. “Absolutely.”

“Then I guess I can spare you for one night. As long as it’s for charity.”

“Oh, it’s charitable, all right,” said Bruce, and his voice was somehow half bright and half dark and absolutely the most intoxicating thing Clark had ever heard.

They spent the day together, and Clark never mentioned that he had come awake with his fingers interlaced with Bruce’s, unsure which of them had reached out in his sleep. They argued about politics in a good-natured fashion; they compared Gotham and Metropolis architecture and argued about that too; they argued about what exactly proper strawberry shortcake was (Bruce considered sponge cake an abomination and swore by only hand-made biscuits as a base). Clark revelled in poking at the barely-banked embers of Bruce’s intellect and passion, causing it to flare up and immolate the bored facade he donned much of the time. He learned a lot about Bruce Wayne: about his love for Gotham, his view of the world, his patent affection for Alfred, the glints of pain when the Manor was ever mentioned.

He didn’t learn anything about his relationship with Bruce.

The rain had faded out and the day had shifted into quiet fog shrouding the lake as the pearly light dimmed into dusk. Clark looked up from one of the books Alfred had brought--a history of Gotham--and caught Bruce looking at him with a strange mix of affection and trepidation. The look was quickly wiped clean and Bruce stood, stretching. “Well, off to do my charity work,” he said lightly.

Clark rose too, coming toward him. “Do I get a goodbye kiss?” he asked.

Bruce’s face went wary. “No,” he said.

A flash of hurt pinged in Clark’s heart; he laughed it off, trying to keep the mood light. “But the world is dangerous, Bruce,” he said. “The last time we parted it was on bad terms and then I vanished and you thought I was dead. Who knows what horrible thing could befall you at your charity ball?”

Bruce said nothing; Clark came closer, resting his hands lightly on Bruce’s shoulders.

“I don’t want us to have regrets like that again,” Clark said, leaning in. His mouth was so close to Bruce’s that he could feel his breaths. “I want you to always go out into the world with my kiss on your mouth. I want--”

His words stopped short as Bruce closed the tiny gap between him and brought his lips to Clark’s in the gentlest brush of a kiss. Bruce’s fingers touched his jaw, a whisper-light caress, and Clark went very still.

“There,” said Bruce. “No regrets.”

“No--” Clark stopped and swallowed as Bruce stepped away, his heart pounding ridiculously fast. “No regrets.”

Bruce turned at the door, umbrella in hand. “But we weren’t lovers,” he said, very low. “I swear.”

“I know,” Clark lied in turn.

The quiet of the lake house was different with Bruce gone: more still, more hesitant. With Bruce there the silence felt right. Without him, it felt… empty.

Clark turned on the news, just to see what was going on the world. Two days surrounded by nothing but glass and rain had left him restless. And yet unwilling to go out into the world again. Not yet, something seemed to whisper. Not until you find what you’ve lost. His history with Bruce? That felt right...and yet not enough.

The news was covering the rebuilding of the areas of Gotham recently destroyed--Clark assumed in the disaster that had left him presumed dead. “Since Doomsday,” intoned the announcer, and Clark felt a chill crawl up his spine at the inflection in her voice. What kind of disaster would it take to refer to it as Doomsday?

Footage rolled, and the chill settled into something closer to a shudder as Clark saw the footage of some monster rampaging. The cameras couldn’t get close, juttering back and forth as shock waves hit them from the--battle? Were those tiny figures fighting whatever this thing was? There was a gleam of virulent green and Clark felt nausea grip him as memory pressed in like a migraine: pain and rubble and ruin and hopelessness; he couldn’t let more people die, he had to--

He pushed at the memories, struggling to turn them from a chaotic jumble to something meaningful, but it was no use, they were fading away again, leaving him shaking and out of breath, the scar on his cheek burning like fresh acid. He snapped off the screen, feeling sick and uncertain, knowing only that he couldn’t handle much more of whatever that was. Had he been trying to help people in that maelstrom of violence? How was that even possible?

The moon was rising, making a path of light across the dark water of the lake. Bruce still wasn’t back. Clark riffled through the stack of books Alfred had brought, enjoying the feel of the paper and the designs of the covers: a scattered collection of Robert Parker hardboiled detective stories; Ursula LeGuin and Temple Grandin mixed in together; The Turn of the Screw; a book about theories of time. They were all dogeared and worn, the editions mostly from twenty or thirty years ago. Here and there were enthusiastic underlinings in ink or notes in the margins in a looping, precise handwriting: Doubtful or check later or sometimes just a few exclamation points. Clark picked up a couple of slim volumes of Mary Oliver’s poetry, turning them over in his hands. One fell open to a poem called “When Death Comes,” the one that starts

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut

Clark’s eyes ran down the page to the end, where someone had underlined the last words:

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
If I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Clark sat for a long time, imagining a younger version of Bruce reading those lines, nodding to himself as the moonlight touched his face through the glass walls--no, that wasn’t right. He wouldn’t have been here, he would have been at the Manor. In his childhood home. Restless as Clark was now, wanting something more, unsure how much pain he would have to endure to get it. Who was that Bruce? Where had he poured all that restive energy?

The moonlight was beckoning-bright, the clouds clear for a moment. Clark was outside the lake house almost before he realized it, sodden grass under his feet, following the tug of his heart toward the ruins of the Manor, brooding and broken in the night.

A Week of Rain (Chapter 3)

2016-07-15T12:19:08Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 3/?
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Three (2200 words):

Bruce woke to the sound of silverware clattering to the stone floor and Alfred’s voice: “Good heavens--”

Bruce threw on a bathrobe and charged out into the living room to find Alfred staring in shock at Clark Kent, who was sitting up on the sofa and rubbing his eyes. “Alfred,” he said hastily, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. This is Clark. He’s--” Alfred stared at him, his face pale, and Bruce finished limply, “--He’s alive.”

Alfred arched an eloquent eyebrow at Bruce, regaining his composure within the space of a breath. “Patently, sir,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Clark. “I didn’t mean to startle you…” He let the sentence trail off, looking at Bruce with a clear an introduction would be nice expression.

“Clark, this is Alfred Pennyworth,” said Bruce. “He was the butler for Wayne Manor.”

Clark laughed as he stood up. “Seriously? Your butler?”

“For the Manor,” said Alfred, shaking his hand. “These days I’m more of a… personal assistant.”

Clark stretched, looking out at the lake, dimpled with rain. “Why don’t you live at the Manor? This place is gorgeous but a bit small.”

After all this time, he should be more prepared, but Clark’s words hit him like a blow to the stomach, like a roaring backdraft. Bruce looked out the window, hearing Alfred say “The Manor burned down some years ago, I’m afraid. We haven’t rebuilt after the… tragedy.”

“I’m so sorry,” Clark said, sounding chagrined. “I...don’t know if I knew that.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

Bruce swung back around at Alfred’s startled voice, saying hastily: “Clark doesn’t remember...anything,” he said.

Alfred’s eyes widened. “Ah,” he said. He paused, as if weighing his words carefully. “Nothing?”

Bruce was keenly aware of Clark looking between their faces. “He woke up in a ditch in Kansas and made his way here. That’s all he knew. Not even his own name.”

“But he knew to come to you,” said Alfred.

“I knew he was important,” said Clark, and Alfred turned to look at him.

“That he is,” Alfred said. He cleared his throat. “As I was not informed of your guest, you’ll have to split breakfast between the two of you, I’m afraid. And Master Bruce, you have a meeting at eleven--”

“--Cancel it,” said Bruce. He looked at Alfred and amended: “Please.”

“Are you certain, sir?”

“Nothing is more important than Clark,” said Bruce.

Alfred frowned. “Nothing?” he said, and Bruce could hear in his voice all the weight of black silk and kevlar and humming electronics in the caves below.

“Nothing,” said Bruce. He turned his gaze to Clark, his hair still rumpled with sleep, wearing Bruce’s pajamas. “Your mother will be landing at ten thirty,” he said. “Shall we go to the airport to meet her?”

Clark looked startled, then wary. “I’d rather--” he said, then broke off as though he wasn’t sure what to say next. “I’d rather wait here, I think. If that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

Bruce looked at Alfred, who nodded. “I’ll pick her up.”

Clark wandered to the window, looking out at the lake, and Bruce moved to stand beside him. Part of his brain was whirring with thoughts, like a mad clockwork: Clark had been shivering last night, an involuntary action. Was there some way to test him and see if his powers were truly gone without him noticing? One couldn’t exactly stab him with a fork and see if it hurt him. Maybe ask him to lift something heavy? Push him off the deck and see if he hovered? Was it possible he had expended the last of his powers to escape from-- Bruce’s thoughts glitched, stuttered, and he forced himself to finish the sentence--from his grave? And was the memory loss due to psychological or physical trauma (both of which caused by Bruce himself, a vicious little voice reminded him)? There weren’t many scientific papers out there about the effects of extended periods of not-living on memory. And it’s possible Kryptonian memory worked entirely differently than human--

“It feels safe here,” Clark said under his breath.

Bruce stopped and took a breath. The chattering clockwork of his brain slowed, steadied. Nothing is more important than Clark. “I hope it is,” he said.

Bruce stood beside Clark and watched the rain fall endlessly into the lake like sheets of silk. The silence was filled with the white hiss of it, gentle as a lullaby, and for a moment, Bruce was simply there--not planning, not preparing, simply there with Clark.

Clark sipped the mud-green shake Alfred--Bruce’s butler, the thought still made him want to laugh--had brought and grimaced. “This tastes terrible,” he said. “I would have thought you’d have caviar and foie gras for breakfast.”

Bruce chuckled and snagged the shake from him, finishing it off with a loud and very un-classy slurp. “You’d be surprised how much energy it takes to be a parasite on society,” he said.

Clark made an exasperated noise. “I did some reading on you while I was looking for your address,” he said. “You’re no parasite.”

Bruce shrugged. “Semantics.”

“You do a lot of good.”

“You...don’t remember me,” said Bruce. “Or you wouldn’t say that.” His face was closed off again, his eyes distant.

Clark whirled and started opening drawers in the tiny kitchenette at random, peering into them. As Bruce stared, he stormed out of the kitchen and went into Bruce’s bedroom. “Hey,” Bruce said with a hint of alarm as Clark started pulling open drawers there as well. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m looking for your cat o’nine tails,” Clark said. The drawers were full of silks and linens, glossy and heavy; he resisted the urge to touch them. “Or your flogger.”

“My what?”

“You seem to enjoy self-flagellation, so I figure there must be something.” Another drawer thrown open, this one full of delicately embroidered handkerchiefs. “Maybe a hairshirt?”

Behind him, Bruce’s voice: “I don’t like people going through my belongings.” His voice was cold, but was there the tiniest thread of amusement beneath it? Clark wanted to think so.

“I’m not ‘people,’” Clark said. “I’m apparently your friend, and I’ve forgotten you and want to know more about you, and I don’t mean listening to you whine about how you’re a bad person.” He leveled a finger at Bruce. “So cut the crap.”

Bruce’s mouth twitched. Then he made a quick gesture, as if clearing a slate. “All right,” he said. “Consider it cut. For now. What do you want to know about me?”

“Everything,” said Clark.

Bruce smiled. It was a slow smile, gentle and wry, and it turned his face from austerely handsome into something almost boyish. I’ve never seen him smile before, the thought came to Clark, though that was absurd--if they were friends, surely he had. Surely.

Never, his mind whispered.

“We probably don’t have time for everything,” said Bruce.

“...picked up some meditation techniques and some very nice Noritake china while I was there,” Bruce said. He broke off. “Am I boring you yet?”

“Not at all,” said Clark, and indeed, he didn’t look bored. He’d changed from the bathrobe into a pair of Bruce’s jeans and a polo shirt, both of which were just slightly too big for him. He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “I wonder if I’ve been to Japan.”

“Uh.” Bruce hadn’t gotten to tracking down Clark’s actions during the time he’d been wandering the world; he’d barely finished chronicling his childhood. There had been so many details to record, so many facts to memorialize and keep forever.

To honor the dead.

Clark was looking at him wistfully, a question in his eyes. The honored, blessed, beloved dead, sitting here, scarred and breathing and beautiful, on his sofa.

“If you did, you never mentioned it to me,” Bruce said truthfully.

Clark looked like he was about to say more, but the sound of tires on gravel cut through the rain and he went completely still, his eyes going wide. Without thinking, Bruce reached out and caught Clark’s hands up in his, squeezing them. “You’ll be fine,” he whispered.

Clark nodded as if he were reassured, but he was very pale as he stood to meet his mother.

She spotted him through the windows as she hurried down the walkway under a black umbrella; Bruce knew the moment she saw him from the way her steps faltered and her hand went to her throat. Alfred quietly took her arm and helped her down the rain-slick path and to the door.

“Clark,” she said. She raised her hands, then dropped them. After a long, helpless moment, she put her hands to her face and started to cry.

“Oh.” Clark stepped forward and gathered her into his arms, burying his face in her hair. “Oh Ma, don’t cry.” He made a sudden sobbing noise and held her closer. “Your perfume,” he said. “It always reminded me of the lilac trees around the swing. Oh Ma, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

Bruce watched as they clung to each other. Then Clark lifted his head and met Bruce’s gaze.

“I remember,” he said.

Bruce staggered back a step, resisted the urge to turn and flee.

“I remember all the things you told me about last night, I remember them now,” Clark said in a breathless rush, his face alight with happiness. “I remember my home, I remember my school, I remember the Daily Planet, I remember…”

His words slowed and stopped as Alfred, Martha, and Bruce looked at him.

“I still don’t remember you,” he said, looking Bruce with something like anguish in his eyes.

There was a long beat of silence, filled with the sound of rain.

“Let’s,” Bruce said, then had to swallow and start again. “Let’s try and figure out precisely what you do and don’t remember.”

Martha’s face under the black umbrella was pale and set. She walked beside Bruce along the lake, the rain a curtain all around them.

“Nothing related to his powers, then,” she said. “Nothing related to being alien, to being Superman. He’s forgotten all of that.”

“We don’t know enough about Kryptonian physiology,” said Bruce. “How is his brain different from a human brain? Who knows what effect trauma of that kind could have on it? We don’t even know how he’s here,” he finished helplessly.

“Sunlight,” Martha said slowly, gazing out at the lake. “Sunlight always healed him.”

Bruce stared at her. “And it’s been raining the whole time. So you’re saying if we can get him into sunlight--all we have to do is get him into an airplane, or even just drive north, above the storm front, and--he should get his powers back, maybe his memories?”

“It seems possible,” said Martha. “If.” She put a hand on Bruce’s arm. “But maybe there’s no hurry. Maybe we could just...wait for the weather to change naturally.”

Bruce took a breath, let it out. Martha seemed to take his silence for disapproval, because she turned toward him, her eyes blazing.

“My son gave everything to protect this world. He gave his life and I buried his body in the ground! And what has this world ever given him back? Nothing but hatred and pain--aside from his few friends,” she added hastily. “Aside from you, for example.”

Bruce felt his breath stutter and stop for a moment. Somehow there had never seemed like a good time to mention that he had spent much of the last hours of Clark Kent’s life trying to do what Doomsday had succeeded at. Lois and Diana had held their tongues as well--he wondered how much of his distress had shown to the two women, what conclusions they had drawn. And now Martha Kent was including him among her son’s friends, when he had been anything, anything but.

Accomplice to his murder, his mind whispered bleakly. If he hadn’t inhaled lungfuls of Kryptonite gas… if he hadn’t been weakened…

“Please,” Martha whispered. “Is it so much to hope for, that he have a few days free of those terrible responsibilities, Bruce? Free from the memory of the people who died despite his efforts?” She looked out across the lake again. “That he have a few days of peace and quiet in the rain?”

Clark looked out to where his mother and Bruce were standing under black umbrellas, faces veiled by rain, on the verge of the lake. His mother put a hand on Bruce’s arm as if she were arguing with him, and Clark strained his ears to catch what they were saying, then stopped, feeling foolish. How could he expect to hear a conversation through reinforced glass walls, from so far away?

Bruce bowed his head and nodded, and Clark saw his mother’s shoulders slump. With relief or despair? He didn’t know.

“I want to remember him,” he whispered.

“Do you, sir?” Clark whirled to find Alfred Pennyworth behind him. “Master Bruce is...not an easy man.”

“To be friends with?”

Alfred seemed to consider. “Not an easy man in any way.” He shot Clark an oblique glance. “Have you considered the possibility that since he appears to be the one thing in your life you do not remember, perhaps there is a good reason for that?”

“He says we fought before I went missing. Do you know what the fight was about?”

Alfred didn’t move, but somehow seemed to become more remote. “I do.”

“But you won’t tell me.”

Alfred shook his head. “I will not.”

Bruce and Martha were coming back toward the house. Bruce took Martha’s arm as they walked, helping her down the path. He looked up and saw that Clark was watching them, and his eyes warmed, though he didn’t smile.

“I want to remember him,” Clark said.

“If I were to give you any advice, sir,” said Alfred abruptly, “It would be to consider this a chance to learn about Bruce Wayne anew--as if you did not know him at all. I would advise you to consider that a gift.”

“You think he’s worth getting to know,” Clark said with certainty.

Alfred nodded.

“Then I will.”

The lake house was quiet again except for the slow hiss of rain and the crackle of the fireplace. Alfred and Martha were gone--Bruce had offered to let Martha stay, but she had shaken her head with a small smile, saying “I know he’s all right, that’s the only thing that matters. Besides, the state fair is in two days and--”

“--no way are you letting Mrs. Lopez’s peach jam beat yours,” Clark finished for her. “Mrs. Lopez beat her out for the blue ribbon last year and she’s been plotting ever since,” Clark explained to Bruce, who just shook his head and laughed.

Martha had hugged Bruce with sudden fierceness and whispered “Thank you” against his shirt, then embraced Clark and kissed his forehead. “Be well. Be at peace for a little while,” she murmured, and then went out into the rain with Alfred.

“She said that like I wasn’t often at peace,” Clark said, looking into the fire.

“You were under a lot of stress. You...poured your heart into your work,” Bruce said, pouring what looked like very expensive whisky into a glass. “Speaking of which, should we contact…”

“They all think I’m dead, don’t they?” Clark said.

A pause. “Yes.”

“Until I remember more, I think I’d rather not tell them,” Clark said. “If I don’t remember you, who knows what other important things I don’t remember?”

Bruce looked away out the window. “I wasn’t that important.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I remembered you before my own mother, my own childhood home. Obviously you’re important.”

“Obviously,” Bruce murmured, with an edge of self-mockery to it. He took a sip of his whiskey and drummed his fingers uneasily on the counter, looking restless. He hadn’t offered Clark a drink; Clark assumed that meant he knew Clark didn’t drink. That… didn’t feel wrong, but it didn’t feel right somehow, either. Clark frowned.

“Did we spend a lot of time here?” he asked to take his mind off the discomfort, gesturing around the lake house.

“No,” Bruce said, taking another sip. “Not enough, at least.” He was looking at Clark, and there was something complex and painful behind his eyes. “We didn’t have enough time together.”

“Well, now we have all the time in the world,” Clark said. “Alfred told me I should get to know you all over again.”

“He did, did he.” It wasn’t quite a question and Bruce wasn’t smiling.

“But that’s not the same as remembering,” Clark said. “I want to remember.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to remember,” Bruce said, looking into his glass. “Maybe I was horrible to you and I hope you never find out.”

Clark laughed. “Considering you’ve basically told me you were horrible and we fought, you’re doing a terrible job of hiding it from me. Instead of being gloomy and moping around, shouldn’t you be trying to be charming and give me a better impression of you?”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “Maybe I am trying to be charming,” Bruce said. “Maybe this is as charming as I get.”

Clark shook his head, smiling. “It’s more charming than you know, I think.”

Bruce’s eyes went oddly wary. “Does it hurt?” he asked, and Clark boggled at the non-sequitur until he realized he’d absent-mindedly touched the scar on his cheek.

“No,” he said, running his fingers over it again, feeling the smooth new skin there. “Did I have it before I disappeared?”

Bruce took a much longer sip of his whisky and shook his head slightly. “I’m sure you got it during the disaster. When you were trying to save people.”

“I don’t remember that at all, still,” Clark said. “I hope… I hope I managed to save someone.”

Bruce reached out and touched the scar, almost as if he couldn’t help himself. “You did,” he murmured as his cold fingers traced the line across Clark’s cheek. Then he pulled his hand back. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Clark said resisting the temptation to touch it again, to feel the place where Bruce’s fingers had been.

“Well,” Bruce said, draining his glass and putting it down with a thump, “I’m going to bed.”

“All right, then,” Clark said to his back as he disappeared into the bedroom. “Good night to you too, Prince Charming.”

Clark woke from a dreamless sleep at the sound of rain being thrown against the windows. The storm had picked up in the night. He looked around the room; the lights still glowing dimly, staving off whatever fears still hid in the shadows. He rolled over on the couch, punching the austere and expensive throw pillow, but he couldn’t fall back asleep.

He lay in the half-dark, remembering Bruce’s eyes as he touched Clark’s face.

There was a long, low growl of thunder that rolled across the lake. Then a sudden flash of light and a much louder crash.

And Clark heard Bruce start screaming in the other room.

Bruce had known it was going to be a bad night before he’d even closed his eyes. Three nights now without prowling the streets of Gotham, three nights without that hot rush of satisfaction and dark joy. Three nights in which evil had gone unchecked and unstopped. Because he couldn’t tear himself away from Clark Kent’s scarred face and gentle eyes.

On nights like this, even whisky wasn’t going to help.

He dreamed.

He bends over Superman’s bright body, rending it. Bruce stomps and hears ribs crackle beneath his feet. The air smells like rust and ozone.

“Why?” Clark chokes. “We could have been--”

Bruce slaps his face. Part of him is screaming, but he can’t make the dream stop. He’s going to keep going until Clark is limp and lifeless beneath him, and nothing is going to stop him this time. There’s blood at the corner of Clark’s mouth. Bruce leans forward and licks at it, wrapping his hands around Clark’s throat, intimate as a sigh. Clark is fighting back, but he’s weak, he’s faltering. Bruce slams his head against the floor and there’s a crash like the world is ending, and he can’t make it stop, he can’t make it stop--

“Bruce! Bruce!” Clark’s voice: not choking on blood but clarion-bright. Still half-caught in the dream, Bruce lashed out, seizing Clark’s shoulders, pivoting to throw him to the bed, straddling him, holding him down.

“Bruce.”

He blinked, the last remnants of the nightmare falling away. Clark’s face was inches from his, his eyes bright and clear, locked on Bruce’s.

“I remember this,” Clark whispered, and Bruce’s breath stopped. “I remember you--I remember us--”

Clark grabbed his shoulders and Bruce braced himself for the blow, but there was no time.

No time to brace himself at all before Clark kissed him with all the desperation of a clap of thunder.

A Week of Rain (Chapter 2)

2016-06-26T12:24:21Z

A Week of Rain by mithen
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary:Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house–and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.

Chapter Two (2200 words):

Clark Kent stood in the lake house, the rain dripping off his hair onto the slate floor and making a quiet ticking sound into the silence. He was shivering as if he were cold (his skin had been cold as marble. Bruce had pressed a hasty kiss against his forehead before he could think better of it). He was still wearing the black suit they had buried him in.

Buried him in.

“But you’re--” Bruce started to say. Couldn’t finish.

Clark took a half-step forward, his eyes eager. “Yes?” he said. “Do you know me?”

Bruce couldn’t meet his eyes. He looked at the scar cutting across his cheek instead. The scar Bruce had given him.

“I don’t remember my name,” Clark whispered, and Bruce realized his teeth were chattering. “I’m sorry.”

”Don’t--” Bruce broke off and swallowed. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll get a blanket.”

Clark took the blanket from him gratefully, then sat in silence as Bruce built up a fire in the fireplace, as if he knew Bruce needed time to collect himself. The tiny flames curled up around the kindling, consuming them. Bruce stared at them.

“Your name is Clark Kent,” he said to the flames. “Does that mean anything to you?”

A long, contemplative silence. Then, heavy with sorrow: “No.”

“Do you remember…” Me, my foot on your throat. Me, taunting your helplessness. Me, dragging you across the ground like a spoil of war. “...anything?”

“I don’t remember anything before waking up in a ditch,” Clark said.

“Then why did you come…” To me. “Here?”

“I… don’t know. I just knew that Gotham was important. That someone named Bruce was important. And when I saw your face on the tv, I knew--”

Bruce waited. The kindling was ash now. The logs were catching fire, burning up.

“I knew you were important. I didn’t know why. I just knew I had to find you. Are we--” Clark’s voice broke off. “Are we--” A long pause. “Do we know each other?”

Bruce turned around. How many times he’d imagined what he would say if he had even just a few more seconds. What would he have whispered into Superman’s ear, if there’d been time for just a few more words? A thousand scenarios, a thousand dreams, a thousand possibilities.

“We were friends,” he said instead of any of them. He hoped it had been true, at the end.

“Ah.” Something flickered across Clark’s face and was gone. “Why don’t I remember anything?”

It was a very good question, second only to how the hell are you alive? Maybe slightly above why do you have no powers? “There was a...disaster,” Bruce said. “Here in Gotham. You got caught in it.”

Clark touched the scar on his cheek. “Is that how I got--”

Bruce didn’t like that question at all. “You were trying to help people,” he said, letting it be an answer.

Clark tilted his head like a dog who has heard a distant sound. “Help people?” he said, and there was a mixture of hope and happiness and bone-deep weariness that seemed to rip at Bruce’s heart.

“You’re a reporter,” Bruce said. “You were trying to help and everything went to hell. We thought you were dead--” His voice cracked wildly on the word (Superman’s body heavy in his arms in the way that only dead bodies are; the casket lid shutting out the last glimpse of his face) and his knees hurt again and he realized he was on his knees on the stone floor, shaking. “We thought you were--”

Clark’s arms were around him, he was kneeling on the floor next to him, the blanket thrown around them both like a sheltering cape. His fingers were warm. His body was warm. He held Bruce and Bruce listened to his (living, living!) heartbeat and felt joy and guilt and longing batter at him.

After a while Clark said, very gently, “‘We’”?

“Your mother,” Bruce said. “Your co-workers and friends.”

“My mother,” said Clark.

Bruce threw off the blanket, staggering to his feet. “I have to call her,” he said, horrified that he hadn’t thought of it until now. “I have to tell her.”

“Bruce, I-- don’t remember her.”

“You will,” Bruce said, “I’m sure you will.” His hands were shaking as he dialed Martha’s number. Only when she picked up and her heard her “Hello?” did he suddenly realize he had no idea what to say: Hi, it’s Bruce. Your son isn’t dead? Insanity.

“Hi,” he said. “It’s...it’s Bruce Wayne. Clark isn’t dead.”

Clark heard the person on the other end of the line gasp. Then there was silence.

“I’m sorry,” said Bruce. He looked utterly lost. He looked like a person who was very rarely utterly lost and had no idea how to go about being found again. “He’s alive, Martha. He doesn’t remember--he doesn’t remember anything. But he’s alive. Martha, are you there?”

The room was so silent. There was only the rain against the windows. It was so quiet Clark could hear the woman’s voice: “May I...see him?”

Bruce fumbled with the phone, putting it on video, and held it up toward Clark.

Clark heard her gasp again and he tried to smile. Then the screen flickered and a woman was there, her face framed by gray hair, her eyes accented with crow’s feet that spoke of a lifetime of worry and laughter. Clark waited, but none of the worries or the laughter came to him, just a wave of inchoate emotion.

“I don’t remember you,” he said as tears tracked down her cheeks. “But I know you. I know you,” he said. “Please believe me.”

“I believe you,” she said, and smiled through her tears. “Bruce, may I--”

“--There’ll be a plane for you at the Kansas City airport in the morning,” said Bruce. “I’ll arrange it. Just tell them who you are. Don’t worry about anything else, just come.”

“Please,” whispered Clark.

When the phone went dark again he closed his eyes and struggled to compose himself. The sound of the rain was loud all around him. When he opened his eyes again Bruce was staring at him, a keen look that quickly vanished into something more neutral.

“How do we know each other?” Clark asked. “My memory may be flawed, but I know enough to know that newspaper reporters rarely hobnob with this kind of…” He waved vaguely to include the lake, the fireplace, the stark modernist opulence of Wayne’s house.

“We met at a party,” Bruce said. “We didn’t get along.” A smile touched his mouth, very lightly.

“How did I win you over?”

The smile disappeared. “By being you,” Bruce said.

“How did you win me over?”

Such pain in those rain-dark eyes. “I don’t know,” whispered Bruce.

Clark swallowed. “We weren’t getting along, were we, when I went missing,” he said.

Bruce turned away from him. “We’d...had a fight, just before,” he said. “A bad one.”

Something about the way he said it, the tightness in his voice--

Clark bent and picked up the blanket from the floor where Bruce had dropped it, folding it carefully, focusing on getting all of the corners lined up correctly, his thoughts whirling. By the time he was done, he had his face back under control.

“Well, if you feel bad about it,” he said, “You can make it up to me by telling me more about myself.”

“Your bedroom was on the third floor. You had posters of Japanese anime and your favorite basketball players on the walls. You collected wheat pennies and had a piggy bank full of them.”

The fire was almost out, its dying flickers the only light in the dark room, and Bruce’s throat felt scratched and raw. All those months of research--of talking to Martha Kent, to Pete Ross, to Lana Lang, of interviewing anyone in Smallville who would care to talk about Clark Kent, as if understanding the man would atone somehow--pouring out of him in a few short hours. He told Clark about his childhood, about his friends, about his home.

He didn’t tell him about his powers.

Clark was sitting next to him on the couch. He’d showered and borrowed a set of Bruce’s pajamas, picking out the plainest Bruce had. He was smiling at Bruce, and Bruce wanted it to continue forever. But his rush of words finally ran down and he stopped, looking back at Clark.

“I don’t remember any of it,” Clark said. “But thank you. You obviously knew me well.”

Words on paper, pixels on a screen, facts in a file. But it was all Bruce had left. Until today. “I came to know you very well,” he said.

Clark looked away at the fire. “I’m...sorry I don’t remember you,” he said. “I’m sorry we quarreled at the end.”

The sound of Superman’s body thudding into stone. The look in his eyes as he’d inhaled lurid green gas. Choking on his attempts to get Bruce to understand, to help. Quarreled.

Bruce stood up. “It’s getting late and you must be tired. I’ll tell you about your life in Metropolis in the morning, if you’d like.”

“You know what I’d like more?” Bruce looked back at him, and Clark smiled. “I’d like to know more about you.”

“I--” Bruce looked at Clark. The scar on his cheek marred the classical symmetry of his features, somehow giving him a lopsided, woebegone charm. “I’m not a very interesting person,” he managed.

Clark chuckled and threw his hands out to indicate the lake house and all its austere luxuries. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“Being rich doesn’t make you interesting,” Bruce said.

Clark sobered, tilting his head to the side. “True,” he said. “But you’re interesting anyway. I can tell.” Then that smile lit his face again, a tentative sunrise in the rain. “I wouldn’t be your friend if you weren’t interesting.”

Bruce looked away. “You’re sure you’re okay sleeping on the couch? You can borrow my bed, you deserve a good night’s sleep.”

“I’m fine out here,” Clark said, fluffing the pillow Bruce had given him. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

Bruce shrugged. Then he tapped the panel on the wall that slid the blinds closed, blocking out the view of the rain-swept midnight lake.

”Stop,” Clark said, and his voice was full of a panic so raw that Bruce slammed the panel again without thinking.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just--” Clark seemed to take a moment to catch his breath. “I don’t like the dark,” he said. “I like to be able to see outside. I don’t like--being alone in the dark.” One hand was clenched and his jaw was set as though he expected Bruce to question or to mock him.

Bruce remembered the mud under the collar of his suit. The dirt and blood under his fingernails.

He touched the panel again and the blinds slid quietly open once more.

Clark relaxed as they did, the tension leaving his body. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Bruce looked around the dark room, lit only by the embers of the fire. Then he quietly turned on the overhead light to about thirty percent. “Is that okay?”

He saw Clark swallow hard. “A little more would be...good,” Clark said.

Bruce moved the light up to about fifty percent. Then he turned on one of the corner lamps and the track lighting on the deck, so that Clark could see outside more easily. “Turn anything on or off as you like,” he said.

“I might run up your electricity bill a bit,” Clark said with a wan chuckle.

“I don’t care,” Bruce said around a tightness in his throat. “I can afford it.”

“Thank you,” said Clark. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yes,” said Bruce. How many nights of terrible nightmares and worse dreams had he woken from to find the world still had no Clark Kent in it? “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Clark lay on Bruce Wayne’s couch--it wasn’t comfortable, but then nothing about this place seemed designed to be comfortable--and closed his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. The darkness hovered nearby, waiting to pounce. The rain outside shivered the surface of the lake with a sound like silk tearing, like vast wings unfurling.

He remembered the look in Bruce’s eyes when he spoke of having fought before Clark went missing. The way he had trembled when Clark had put his arms around him. The sound of his voice as he told Clark about his own childhood in exquisite detail, trying to make him remember.

Clark wrapped the blanket more tightly around himself, remembering the care with which Bruce had turned on the lights, banishing the dark.

Eventually he fell into a sleep without dreams, a darkness shot through with golden light.

FIC: A Week of Rain, Chapter 1

2016-06-17T11:34:55Z

A Week of Rain (1010 words) by mithen
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Resurrection, Romance, Secret Identity, Guilt
Summary: Clark Kent seeks out Bruce Wayne when he is resurrected, but he has no memory of his time as Superman and no powers. Bruce has to deal with an unexpected visitor to his lake house--and his own grief, guilt, and attraction.
Chapter Summary: He wakes up with no memory, and only two words to go on: Gotham. Bruce.

The smell of dirt wakes him.

He’s face down in a ditch on the side of a road. Weeds tickling his face. He rolls over. It’s night. The moon is full.

His chest aches as though he’s been screaming, but he doesn’t remember screaming.

He doesn’t remember.

He doesn’t remember anything.

His fingers hurt. He holds his hands up; in the moonlight he can see the dirt beneath the nails. There’s blood there too.

He’d gotten out before the last of his strength gave out. The thought comes to him, but he doesn’t know what it refers to. Gotten out of what? He casts his mind back and finds only darkness. Not even a name.

He sits up and every muscle seems to shriek in agony, a wave of pain so intense he doesn’t know what to do with it. That isn’t right, he knows that isn’t right. He’s wearing a black suit, oddly formal, but he can feel dirt under his collar, in his socks. He staggers to his feet, wincing, and tries to brush some of it away. His hands are shaking. The moon slips behind a cloud and he’s left in the dark.

Gotham. He doesn’t know where he is, but. Gotham. That’s an important place. Something important happened there. There’s a reason he should be there. He doesn’t know what it is.

Gotham.

Slowly, painfully, he starts to limp down the road, looking for a street sign. When it becomes clear he’s got a long way to go, he puts up his thumb as trucks go by, their headlights stabbing at him in the dark.

It starts to rain, turning the dirt that covers him to mud.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking when someone finally stops and picks him up, asks him where he’s going.

“Gotham,” he says over the sound of the rain on the windshield.

“You’re in luck,” says the driver. “That’s where I’m bound. What’s your name, son?”

It catches him off guard. Nothing comes to him in the dark. And then a name that he grabs like a drowning man suddenly finding a spar: “Bruce,” he says.

It’s not his name. But it’s an important name. He knows this.

“Nice to meet you, Bruce. Looks like you’ve had a rough time of it,” says the driver, sympathetically.

“I guess,” he mutters. He flips down the visor and sees his face for the first time. It’s streaked with mud, and there’s a scar trailing across one cheek. Not an old scar. He touches it wonderingly, tracing the vicious line of it. The trucker, whose name turns out to be Stu, tries to engage him in conversation for a little bit, but when he doesn’t respond, lets a casual silence fall. The rain beats down, veiling the world outside.

He feels himself listing sideways and jerks upright in panic, digging his nails into the palm of his hand. He doesn’t want to sleep, to let the darkness take him again. No.

Eventually, try as he might to fight it, it takes him anyway.

When he wakes up, all he feels is a vast relief, as if he’s escaped something again.

When they get to Gotham, he helps Stu unload the truck in the rain as repayment for the ride and the food he had shared on the way. “You’re a strong fellow,” Stu says appreciatively as he hoists a crate.

He looks down at the crate in his arms. He can lift it, but it’s an effort. “Not really,” he mutters, feeling somehow dissatisfied.

Stu insists he has a cup of coffee in the break room before he goes, and he accepts because he doesn’t know where he’s going. The room is filled with exhausted truckers; a television on the wall rattles off baseball scores. He takes a gulp of coffee and chokes as it burns his mouth.

“Sip! Sip! Geez, kid, don’t you even know how to drink coffee?” Stu says.

He takes a more careful sip. Then he almost chokes again as a face fills the screen: urbane, cosmopolitan. Eyebrows more suited to glaring than smiling, though his face is neutral as he leans close to the microphone. Just enough stubble to be masculine without looking negligent. He’s saying something about rebuilding, but the words are a blur.

A name goes by on the screen: Bruce Wayne.

He stands up. “I have to go,” he says. “I’m sorry. Can you give me directions to the library?”

The rain beats down on him as he makes his way out into the city.

Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne knows it’s raining before he opens his eyes from the pain in his knee. It’s an ache that’s been there for years now. He’s gotten used to it.

There are other, more recent aches that he hasn’t.

How do you mourn the loss of a friend you never had? A friendship you certainly didn’t deserve, a friendship you threw away stillborn.

But still.

He listens to the rain falling endlessly into the lake for a while, longer than he should. There’s work to do. He’s glad for it.

Rising, he pulls his ridiculous satin dressing gown on--de rigeur for dealing with houseguests who won’t take the hint and leave quickly and quietly the next day. Not that anyone has spent the night with him recently. Not since--

He growls something wordless at himself and stalks out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes. He looks out at the rain--and stops, his heart hammering against his ribs.

There on his deck is a ghost. A dead man. A vision. Except that ghosts don’t get soaking wet in the rain, their hair plastered to their head. Dead men don’t smile hesitantly, nervously.

And visions don’t have a scar across the bridge of their nose that you put there, barely-healed, sharp as an accusation.

Clark Kent--alive, alive!--puts his hand to the glass wall separating them and says, “Mr. Wayne?” He pauses, and that tentative smile flits across his face again. “May I come in?”

Clarity of Vision side story: New Friends

2016-06-04T04:35:16Z

New Friends (1100 words)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Frodo Baggins, Boromir (Son of Denethor II), Faramir (Son of Denethor II), Denethor II
Additional Tags: Fluff, Friendship, First Meetings, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Series: Part 5 of Clarity of Vision
Summary: On one of his annual trips north to Annuminas with Bilbo and Thorin, Frodo encounters a couple of boys in some peril and helps out.
Note: Happy birthday to starsandsea! This is our ninth birthday shared in fandom, and every one has been precious to me.

“We will understand if you don’t wish to come with us this year, dear boy,” said Bilbo to his cousin as he threw open the shutters, letting the sunshine and lilac-scented spring air into Bag End. “I’m sure you grow tired of sitting around a bunch of old fogeys, listening to us all talk about the old days.”

“Now, now,” said Thorin reprovingly as he folded a sheet fresh from the line, “we don’t always talk about the old days. Sometimes we discuss terribly modern topics like taxes, or roads, or treaties.”

Bilbo laughed. “Such riveting conversation! Truly, how could Frodo bear to miss a moment of it?” He sobered, still smiling at Frodo. “But at twenty you are old enough to stay here alone for a few days, I’m certain.”

“I’m happy to travel with you,” said Frodo, though secretly he was horrified at the idea of being left behind. Thorin and Bilbo’s yearly trips north to the old capital of Annuminas were the highlight of Frodo’s year. Why, just last year he had gotten to meet Glorfindel and hear tales from lost Gondolin, and Theoden had taught him how to shoot an arrow (to Bilbo’s horror). And--Frodo still blushed to remember it--Arwen had danced a pavane with him, her hand soft in his. No, he would not miss it for the world. “I enjoy your company, cousins.”

“Oh, very well,” said Bilbo, throwing up his hands, though he looked happy enough. “But we must remember to pack even more biscuits this time, as Gimli and Legolas ate them all last year.”

Every year what had once been a little camp at the crossroads of the ruins of Annuminas grew bigger and bigger; by now it was nearly a thriving settlement. Thorin and Bilbo were negotiating the price of the trip with the caravan leader, and Frodo was carrying their bags toward the newly-built Halls of Rest when he heard the sound of a child crying.

Without thinking, he dropped his bags and sprinted toward it.

He rounded the corner to see what appeared to be three young and dirty men in ragged clothes--one nursing a bloody nose, the other two with their fists clenched--facing down two children. The smaller child, a fair-haired boy in dark blue velvet who looked to be barely old enough to walk, was lying on the ground, sobbing. Standing between him and the three toughs was a dark-haired boy--Frodo wasn’t a good judge of the ages of men, but he probably had seen little more than a decade of life. The older boy had his arms outstretched as if to protect the younger, and there was a fierce anger in his eyes.

“Don’t you dare touch my brother again or I’ll do more than bloody your nose!” he cried. “Go on, get out of here!”

His assailants looked like they were weighing their chances; Frodo saw their eyes take in the silver buttons and golden thread on the boys’ clothing. They were about to surge forward when Frodo stepped up to stand next to the boys. “I think you should be moving along,” he said quietly.

The leader of the bullies narrowed his eyes, re-assessing their chances. Frodo wasn’t big or overly threatening, but his presence seemed to tip the balance, for he spat in the dust of the street and gestured at his flunkies to join him in swaggering off.

Frodo helped the younger boy to his feet, helping to brush the dust off his velvet breeches. “You should have told them who you were,” he said to the older boy. “They would have thought twice about bothering you then.”

“What do you mean?” said the older boy at the same time his brother lisped, “How do you know who we are?”

Frodo smiled at the two of them. “You have your father’s nose and fierce eyes, Boromir of Pelargir,” he said.

Boromir started, then laughed ruefully. “And my father’s temper, my mother says. They shoved my little brother in the dust for play, and I nearly bit off more than I could chew, did I not? And after I promised I would behave myself if Father finally took us along on his spring journey.” He ruffled his brother’s hair affectionately. “Faramir, say thank you to--are you Bilbo?” he said, curious. “My father speaks often of a halfling named Bilbo, and I would guess you are a halfling, but I thought he would be older.”

“I am his cousin, Frodo Baggins, at your service,” said Frodo with a quick bow.

“No, indeed, we are at yours!” cried Boromir. “We shall help you carry your bags, and while we are here together, we will be your faithful servants.”

Frodo laughed, for he had doubts that one such as Boromir would be able to play the role of a servant for long. And indeed, the two brothers proved poor servants, but they became fast friends of Frodo’s, especially once Faramir discovered the marmalade biscuits in Bilbo’s bag and ate four in quick succession, proclaiming them the most magnificent food he had ever eaten.

“I see you have already met,” Bilbo said later when he came to their rooms and found Boromir and Frodo arguing about whether willow sticks or hazel sticks were better for roasting marshmallows, while a sticky-faced Faramir slept curled up on top of Bilbo’s luggage.

“My apologies, Frodo,” said Denethor behind him. “I did not mean to press you into being a babysitter for my sons!” At the sound of his father’s voice, Faramir sat up and rubbed his eyes, raising his arms to be picked up. “I hope they were no bother.”

“Not at all,” said Frodo as Boromir cast him an imploring look. “We’ve had quite a quiet afternoon.”

“Frodo guessed who we were right away, Father!” said Faramir, throwing his arms around his father’s neck. “After he saved us, he said so.”

“Saved you?” said Denethor, raising an eyebrow at his older son. Boromir smiled uneasily at him.

“Well,” said Bilbo, deflecting the topic, to Boromir’s relief, “I’m pleased to see that my cousin, at least, recognizes royalty when he sees it!”

Frodo couldn’t help but laugh. “Bilbo, I knew Thorin all my life and never guessed he was a king!”

“Retired,” Bilbo said cheerfully. “It doesn’t count. Now,” he said, clapping his hands together and eyeing the young folk, “first to the banquet table gets an extra marmalade biscuit!”

Boromir and Faramir immediately tore off, shrieking with delight and slipping on the marble floors.

But--for Bilbo’s marmalade biscuits were treasure worth striving for indeed--Frodo still beat them there.