One is silver

One is silver
by Te
March 17, 2007

Disclaimers: Not mine at all.

Spoilers/Timeline: References to very old Batman storylines.
Meant to take place sometime just before "Death of
Superman" and "Knightfall."

Summary: In which a good time is had by all.

Ratings Note/Warnings: Sexual content all over the place.
Some readers may find some of it disturbing.

Author's Note: I'm not sure where this came from,
exactly, beyond a vague desire to get Dick laid a lot.

Acknowledgments: Much love to the usual suspects,
but especially to Zee for forgiving my need to write
more of it despite her visit. *laughs*

*

Clark brings home with him everywhere he goes.

Well -- not home, per se -- this apartment could use a few
more things than what Dick has. Some pictures, clothes on
the floor instead of boxes, music, the smell of Someone Else
(Kory) --

Just the same, it's hard to think about décor with Clark here.
It's hard to think about --

It's hard to think, period, because Clark has finally relaxed
enough that it's okay that they're both naked. It's not that
he's as uptight as he'd like the vast majority of the human
population to think he is, but there's still some… hm.
Shyness, maybe?

He isn't sure, really. All he knows is that sometimes it feels
like he's been waiting for Lois to hurry up, marry Clark, and
sex the shy *out* of him until he can be like this all the
time.

Like this:

All of his human-seeming weight *on* Dick, and every
purposeful shift making things interesting below the waist.
There's a little spot on Clark's chest -- an imperfection that
tastes like the salt of Dick's own sweat when he licks his
thumb, swipes it over the spot, and then licks it again --

"I'm jealous," Clark says, easy and low -- easy enough that
his expression doesn't change. It's one of Dick's favorites:
the 'I'm just going to gaze down at you until you can
breathe well enough for me to make love to you again.'

"Of what? Exactly," Dick says, and rolls his hips -- Clark lifts
up *just* enough that Dick can make it very, very good.

"You've tasted yourself -- far more recently than I have."

Mm. Just -- mm. "Oh, that was just a little -- maintenance.
Clean-up. Don't want you to catch cooties or anything --"

And oh, oh, *oh* how he loves it when Clark waits to
laugh -- that sweet, deep *laugh* -- until they're already
kissing, until Clark can --

Blow Dick up like a balloon with those laughs, or maybe just
push all that *home* right into him. There are a lot of
languages with better words for the concept *and* the
feeling, but it's impossible not to think in English around
Clark.

Probably he shouldn't, but --

But --

Clark knows, of course -- he's had a lot of experience, if not
precisely *enough* -- that licking the roof of Dick's mouth
leads to him laughing despite himself, shivering and
*pushing* -- "Stop that --"

"I'm terribly sorry --"

"You -- you," Dick says, and pushes Clark away a little more,
and drags his too-short-for-this fingernails down over Clark's
chest, around his nipples, around his nipples from the other
direction --

"Dick."

A statement, rather than -- anything else. Sometimes Dick
almost misses the days when Clark felt a need to be careful
enough that 'Dick' would be, 'Dick, you -- I'm becoming
quite aroused again. You should, perhaps --'

Well -- never *stop*. Not with *Clark*.

Not until he absolutely positively has to. "D'you
remember --"

"Yes."

The smiles breaks over him before he can think about it, the
way it always used to. "Clark. You've gotta let me -- make
this a *moment*."

Clark bites his lip and nods, solemnly. "Of course. I don't
know what I was thinking."

"Thought so," Dick says, and twists and pushes until Clark
moves them -- fast enough that Dick's still twisting and
pushing after he's already straddling Clark. "Oh, so you
wanted a *lap* dance. I'm afraid that's extra, big boy."
With anyone else, the eyebrow waggle would be pushing
it.

With Clark, it's the best way to make Clark look honestly
shocked before he recovers and looks *dishonestly*
shocked, wide-eyed, mouth in a perfect-pretty-disturbing-
wonderful --

"Oh, you --" Dick shakes himself like a dog. "I was saying
something, you know."

"Almost certainly," Clark says, and for a moment he sounds
*almost* enough like Bruce to make this -- problematic.
Difficult --

Until, of course, Clark sees Dick's nerves sizzling or smells
the hormone mix in his sweat get below optimal --

*Superman*.

Clark is stroking his back, easing him, pushing home in
through his fingertips, and -- hey. "Hey," Dick says.

"Not for horses…?"

Dick swats Clark on one massive, beautiful pectoral. Clark
has relaxed himself so much that he almost feels human,
but it's not like Dick would ever even try to *really* hit him.
Just -- it's what they do, and Clark is smiling at him like Dick
is smiling at *him*, and he might as well be thirteen, really.

Only then, this would be in the sky. He's gotten to like beds
in the intervening years, and -- yes, he'd had a thought. He
really should facilitate those, if he's going to get any of it
*out* before he has to just drown himself in Clark again,
so --

"*Oh*," Clark says, just as if he hadn't relaxed his legs down
to human-hardness long before Dick's controlled fall
backwards had gotten anywhere.

Maybe he's just liking what this position does to Dick's
thighs. Or the view.

"Dick, you are -- wonderful."

"The feeling is very, very mutual, Clark," he says, staring up
at the helpfully boring ceiling and massaging his own quads
a little --

Maybe also his happy, happy -- dick. A little. "You shouldn't
feel obligated to stop," Clark says, and Dick doesn't have to
see Clark's face to know precisely where his focus is.

Maybe even down to the precise knuckle, or patch of come
and pre-come slick skin. "Mmmm, noted," Dick says, and "I
was gonna say something about that time you bent me in
half --"

"I often find myself wondering why I don't do that more
often," Clark says, and "faster, please?"

"Not -- not just yet. I'm already too close --"

"Not close enough --"

"Too close to keep myself from coming until your big, big,
wonderful, *big* penis is, say, in my mouth," Dick says, and
*grins* at the ceiling.

"I stand -- lie, even -- corrected. Do continue…"

Laughing makes it better, of course. Laughing *always* --
"oh, Clark, I really really love you --"

"And I you --"

"And I think I need you to make friends with my -- little
brother."

"Little -- Tim? He's a very interesting young man, of course.
We've had the chance to speak a few times. Oh, the motion
of your hips is really rather glorious, you know."

It feels *better* than glorious, even though if he was doing
this to -- on -- a human, his pelvic bone would probably be
causing more pain than joy. Maybe especially because it
would. "He told me. I told *him* -- all about you."

"All…?" And Clark's hands feel almost *sneaky* sliding up --
up -- *up* Dick's thighs, like maybe he thinks he'd
actually -- ever -- need permission.

It's possible that he's less moving than writhing, right now.
"I -- God, I love it when your erection is pressed up against
me. *Anywhere* against me --"

"Dick, you --"

"And that time -- you just rubbed *off* against me, and you
kept --" He's losing the thread. The hand on his dick doesn't
actually care about this, and neither does the dick in
question. "Your dick kept slipping right *into* my crack --"

"You were -- very slick with your own sweat. Mine," Clark
says, and the fact that the word comes just as Clark's hands
close -- loosely -- around Dick's working, *working* hand
is --

Is. "Clark -- Clark, I don't think I can really stop --"

"Then don't. You're so very beautiful…"

He's panting now, blowing like the horse which isn't
anywhere near this room -- the endowment of the Clark
aside -- "I -- it can't be right, entirely, that every time I see
the frown lines the kid -- Tim -- is getting on his forehead I
wind up thinking about you not-fucking me until I was
*crying* --"

"I was -- I was very worried --"

"You were *hard*, and I was just -- I couldn't feel anything
but *you* --"

"Dick -- you should know I'm going to -- I have to *move*
you, once you ejaculate --"

"Yes, yes, *do* it," Dick says, and he doesn't have the
control to pump into his own fist, and he's too slick to get
the right friction unless he squeezes *tight* --

He squeezes, and Clark *jerks* beneath him --

"Oh -- ah -- *fuck*, I love you, I love you, and I just think
I'll -- maybe obsess about it --"

"Your little brother…?"

"Uh, huh. Can I --" And Dick's body doesn't -- won't -- wait
until he's got the words out before he's jack-knifed himself
back up to kneeling over Clark, until he's pushing --

Until he's almost slapping Clark's hands away from himself,
and getting his other hand slippery enough that it slides
against the wall when he leans forward --

When Clark grabs his hips -- "*Oh*," Dick says, and he
sounds sad, embarrassed, needy and almost *hurt* to his
own ears, but Clark is just *staring*, opening his mouth,
his impossibly pretty *mouth* --

And Dick pushes in --

"Gimme -- gimme a little yank I don't wanna come --"

And Clark reaches for Dick's sac from behind, and Dick's
eyes are crossing, and the sound he's making isn't even
remotely human, and when the stars (fall out of the *sky*)
fade behind his eyes, there's wetness, there's too much
*heat* all around his dick, and the only way to keep his
hips from pumping, to keep himself from *thrusting*, is,
probably, to just die right here.

Clark hums around him, mmm's around him, and he isn't
really --

He isn't even holding Dick *steady*, which is mean, because
it means that Dick has to grab the wall with both hands to
keep from falling into the sky where the stars used to be.

He's sliding, jerking --

Leaving *prints* --

And he can't stop himself, and it feels so -- so --

When he *tries* to stop himself, that's when Clark *does*
hold him there -- pushing -- moving --

And there's the sky, or at least the air, and there's *Clark*,
fucking his face on Dick's *dick* and never, ever closing his
eyes.

Unless he waits until after *Dick's* eyes roll back in his
head and he's coming.

There's a moment when Dick's often painful brain gives him
the image of himself maintaining altitude with just the
*force* of his orgasm, but it fades into obscurity fast enough
to keep him from *snickering* through it, and then there's
the different kind of floating:

Down, and down, and down until he's wrapped around Clark
and -- yes -- taking point on the whole 'tasting himself'
mission.

He likes that mission.

Clark likes --

So very many wonderful things.

Eventually, they're mostly lying side by side, and Clark's
dick -- the one permanently attached, heh, heh -- is a hot,
sticky, and oh-so-solid weight in his fist.

"Is it -- does it bother you that the one power of yours I
can't really wrap my head around is the one where I could,
actually, tease you like this for hours without you fucking
me blind?"

Living with Bruce has taught him -- well -- how to hear the
raise of an eyebrow.

"I -- okay, fine, but the world is full of all kinds of people,
Clark. Somewhere out there is *someone* who could be
naked with you and a mouthful of their own come and not
want more as soon as -- humanly -- possible."

"Perhaps I just haven't made love with enough people."

Which -- okay, probably shouldn't bring Dick back to *this*
point, but -- "You find him attractive, don't you?"

"He makes me wonder what Lois was like when she was a
high-school student," Clark says, and doesn't sound
bemused or bewildered enough to --

"Wow. That may be the dirtiest thing you've ever *said*."

"Really, Dick --"

"I mean, I helped compile that dossier. Didn't she go to
some all-girls' school somewhere? With the uniforms?"

"Well -- yes, but --"

"Short skirts, white blouses… I wonder if she wore her hair
long and straight back then --"

And it's impossible to be sure if Clark's getting *harder*,
but that twitch was definitely a twitch.

"You *pervert*," Dick says, and squeezes Clark as hard as
he can without hurting himself --

"*Dick* --"

"Maybe she had that chewing gum habit back then, too --"

"Oh -- Dick --"

"Do you think about how sweet she would've tasted, Clark?
Do you wonder if she'd have to work harder to find things
to *say* --"

Clark is so, so good. When he bends Dick's legs back, his big
toes barely even brush the wall, he's so good, and then he
can just let the backs of his legs *rest* against Clark's
chest, and Clark's shoulders are a *great* place for his
hands, and wherever the lube came from -- it doesn't feel
like his own -- it's warm and *wonderful* inside him --

Warm and -- *pushed* inside him, slid inside him, and Clark
is moving slow enough that Dick wants to scream, but it's
hard enough and *good* enough that he already *is* --

"*Dick*," Clark says, and it sounds like he's being
*scolded* --

("It's a power I don't often have the need to use, Dick --
and if I can use it to make you happy… Bruce doesn't have
to know. Robin.")

"Dick, you -- you should never -- always --"

And the rest is a *moan*, and it's not like he hasn't heard
those from Clark before, it's just that it's always a shock,
always something to make him shiver and buck and
*whine*, because it's Clark, and Dick never wants to --

He knows he isn't hurting Clark, but --

He has to try to hold on to him, just the same. He has to
just -- keep him right *here*, on him and in him. He has to
make sure Clark knows --

But when he tries to say anything, he's the one moaning,
and Clark's the one *clutching* -- thrusting harder, faster,
and it's always just a little scary at this point --

And he never forgets that.

It's always just a little *close* to the line between the part
of him too stoned on sex to want anything but more, and
the part of him which knows how *close* Clark is to
honestly hurting him -- and it's always exactly what makes
him come when Clark's fucking him.

And what lets him get *right* back to the edge faster than
his body should even be able to *approximate* --

His legs are starting to *hurt* --

And when Clark pulls out and *moves* him onto his belly,
the sheets aren't enough, too soft and smooth, too *damp*
with everything, too --

The sheets are perfect and so is Clark, massaging the
tension out of his back and arms almost before he can
*feel* it, driving into him again and again --

"*Clark* --"

And it's more of a cough than a word, and then it's more
like a moan, and then it's more like a scream, because it's
the only word he has left, he can't live if the only thing he
can say is Clark's name, he can't do anything but *have*
this, take it and be --

"*Dick*," Clark says, in that -- in the *Voice*, and it's not
the right time for it.

He's too close, or maybe not close enough, and he just
wants -- he just wants everything. Another body to reach
for, to touch and taste -- live for --

*Bruce* --

"Don't hold back from me, Dick. Don't --"

"*Fuck*, *Bruce* --"

And it's never been fair, and it's never been right -- as
opposed to *good* -- but the hand on the back of his neck
is as hard as a gauntlet, and the bed could be any bed,
anywhere --

God, he would --

Please, *anything* --

"Don't stop, *please* --"

And maybe, maybe if it was like this --

Maybe if it was Bruce who was fucking Dick *right* on the
line between perfect and pain, making Dick call out, making
Dick need it --

Maybe he could make Bruce shake the way he always made
Dick shake, maybe it would feel just like this, to know that
*he* was the right one, beautiful and necessary enough --

Perfect enough --

"*Robin*," Bruce says, and he wants to hold back, hold
himself back --

But Bruce doesn't want him to, and he -- he *can't*, and
coming this soon is too much, it hurts and he's
*shuddering*, shaking his head --

"Beautiful," Bruce -- *Clark* --

"No, no please -- you gotta -- I need you --"

"I've got you --"

"Clark, *please* --"

And saying it is like breaking, like tearing himself away from
a nightmare he needs to just *finish*, once and for all --

"Clark," and now he sounds like he's crying, even though he
isn't, even though that part's over --

"Oh, Dick, it's all right, it's -- you feel so wonderful, always
so beautiful --"

Like always, like -- always, it's a shock to realize that Clark
still hasn't come, that he still -- *needs*. It's impossible, it's
incredible -- there are times when he isn't sure whether he
wants to flee or worship or just *ride* it, be this --

Clark's friend.

Clark --

Clark's sweat making the bedroom smell like *warmth*,
taste like skin -- male --

"Please -- please come," Dick says, and "you --"

And he's shoving himself up onto his hands, and sometimes
this is where 'Bruce' pushes him back down, holds him still,
but Clark just shifts them, holds Dick, kisses the back of
Dick's neck and kisses --

Dick's light years away from being able to come again, and
all he can think about other than the way Clark gets
*closer* every time he begs -- "*Please* --"

All he can think about is how Tim looks years older now
than he did when they'd convinced Bruce to take him on,
when it was either that or face --

Everything he still couldn't -- "Oh, I love you, Clark, I love
you --"

(Kory, holding him and burying him in her hair, in her scent
and warmth, as he told her about being further from Robin
than ever.)

He's wanted to hate Tim and he's *been* afraid of him, but
every time Dick reaches out, Tim makes him feel like water
in a dry season, and he's not -- "Come on, come on,
*please* --"

"Dick, I don't know how -- I never know how I'll let you
*go* --"

*Dick* isn't the best thing a Robin can have.

*

[This is a test of the emergency PWP system. In the event
of a real story, this is where the plot would go.]

*

There's something almost ridiculously transgressive about
finding and inhabiting the shadows on the roof of his --
father's house, considering how Tim's spent much of the last
year and a half. He's -- *skulking*, really, and it doesn't
matter that there've been more than a few occasions when
he's had to do it in order to slip back in unnoticed after a
particularly long night with Batman --

Well, no, that may very well be part of the point. On *other*
nights, he's needed the shadows from this oak, and that oak
over there, and that not-quite-large-enough-for-comfort --

("I never would've figured you for a tree-hugger, son. I was
just thinking about how the gutters would do come fall, but
if you like the tree… you like the tree. It's fine.")

-- elm in order to be absolutely sure that moonlight wouldn't
throw his shadow on a patch of lawn his father might be
peering at if his medication wasn't working well enough.
He's -- it's been *necessary*.

Here, now, like this --

Well, his father isn't even *home*. Tim could be waiting on
the couch in the living room, or, hell, punishing his father's
home gym. He could be --

It's Superman.

("You really must call me Clark, Tim, or else I think Dick will
be upset with *both* of us.")

Dick --

Dick likes the idea of him and Clark being friends. That's --

Well, he knows that Dick wouldn't really -- that it doesn't
really --

He *doesn't* know. No one has ever really been invested in
making sure that he made friends with a third party, before.
And really -- he's not entirely ignorant. He knows that there
are all sorts of people in the world who do things like 'fixing
up' friends with friends casually, and without much meaning
behind it.

Additionally, he's not nine anymore. He understands that it's
both possible and plausible that *Dick* does things without
conscious meaning behind them. It's just that, as near as he
can tell via observation (and Bruce doesn't give him a lot of
time for that sort of thing, but the *access* is impeccable),
sometimes meaningful things happen whether or *not*
Dick meant them to, and.

It probably says something about him that *knowing* Dick
wants him to hang out with Clark --

("Of course, all this scheduling probably means we'll be
invaded by aliens hell-bent on destroying the planet to make
way for a hyperspace bypass, but I *know* your Dad isn't
going to be around this weekend --")

It probably says something, that's all. Clark has stopped
by -- Gotham -- a few times since Tim has been officially (it
still doesn't seem real all the time; it *can't*) Robin, and
showed every sign of continuing to stop by, but now Dick --
well, he --

Dick wants him to have Superman as a friend.

He can't imagine what the look on his face is like. However,
it feels like the same one which had made Dick start to
ruffle his hair and then pull him into -- into a *hug*.

And it wasn't like the one from his mother's (don't think)
funeral, and it wasn't like the one from the day at the
circus, either. It was -- new and different, and --

("Just do me a favor and *ask* him who you remind him of,
okay? Preferably while he's eating something.")

His father's new physical therapist either has a habit of
cooking for dozens, a crush on his father, or both. There's
a vegetarian multi-grain casserole in the fridge which he's
pretty sure neither Bruce *nor* Alfred could object to.

His father hates it, and has made it plain that there will be
any number of rewards in it for Tim should he make even
*moderate* headway on finishing it before his father returns
from his weekend inpatient therapy on Sunday.

Which is the only possible reason why he responds to
Clark's quiet "hello, Tim," with --

"Did you eat? I mean. Hi."

He doesn't just not know what look is on his face right
now -- he's afraid to find out. Clark looks *puzzled*.

"Um. Sorry. I just --"

"You're… nervous?"

"Well, I. You've never come over -- here -- before. Alfred
hasn't had time to give me the full course on proper hosting,
and," he's babbling. "And -- you're here. Would you like to
come in?"

Clark's response is -- less a response than the softest
possible landing. If his roof were made of sugar glaze, it's
possible it wouldn't crack -- he's babbling in his own head.

"Clark…?"

"You --" He shakes his head. "Most people find it intrusive
when I rattle off a list of physical symptoms I can discern,
but -- forgive me, Tim, you seem more… out of sorts than
you did when we first met."

And Clark looks -- Clark may actually be broadcasting small,
invisible concern beams right at him. He's -- Tim is being an
idiot. "It was… different when it was just you wanting to be
my friend… as opposed to Dick wanting you to be my
friend," he says, to Clark's shoulder. It's better than saying
it to the roof *or* the shield, but not by nearly enough. He
looks up --

And Clark's smile isn't really human, at all. It's too soft, too
*warm* -- Clark's smile is precisely like being too *close* to
Clark, like being able to smell all the ways he smells less
like a man and more like something from the *earth* --

He has actually opened his mouth to *ask* Clark what
Wonder Woman smells like. He closes his mouth again. He
clears his throat. He --

"Dick's opinion is very important to you," Clark says, and
touches his face. Just -- briefly.

Perhaps being around Clark is all *about* contrasts,
reminders of everything people ignore or don't recognize
until they're gone. Like cold, and space, and the ability to
think entirely clearly.

"It's important to me, too," Clark says, and looks to the
northeast -- New York -- and laughs. "I think I may also be
nervous."

Which would be, from anyone else -- certainly from any of
the adults who've ever made a token effort to 'reach out' to
him over the years -- a blatant and kind of embarrassing lie.
From Clark… well. "Bruce has approved of the limited use of
sedatives when the alternative is the sort of -- emotional
upset which can, well, limit one's activities --"

"I've never found the sensation of being drugged
particularly pleasurable -- especially while I've been in the
company of fascinating young men."

"Or then there's --" It shouldn't be possible for a blush to
make it impossible to talk.

"Yes, Tim…?"

"We could pretend -- provisionally -- that Dick won't be
grading our performance."

"Hmm," Clark says, and folds his arms over his chest and --
the expression on his face is so *exaggeratedly* thoughtful
that Tim can't help but laugh.

And get winked at -- *almost* too fast to see.

"It would have to *only* be provisional, of course."

Tim bites his lip -- stops. "It wouldn't be -- toward -- for us
to forget our primary goal."

"Which is, of course, to leave Dick with no doubt whatsoever
that we're -- fast friends."

"Well, I wouldn't want to move too quickly with all of this,
Clark --"

"Oh," Clark says, and touches Tim's nose with the tip of his
finger -- human-fast and gone. "Though we're not
considering that -- at the moment -- I believe Dick would've
enjoyed that pun."

Clark is fully aware of how hard he works to make jokes,
even weak ones, or he wouldn't have -- telegraphed that
particular straight line. Just the same…

Just the same, it must feel so familiar and *right* to Clark
to have a boy -- a *Robin* smiling up at him like this, like --
he doesn't know. "Come in…?"

And, well, he'd planned to show (off for) Clark a few of the
skills he's picked up in terms of navigating the roofs and
walls of buildings lacking fire escapes or even handily
crumbling brickwork, but he really doesn't have a problem
with being *flown* into his own open bedroom window.

Even though it's slow enough that Tim has more than
enough time to remember that, tonight, he could've just
left the front door open, or one of the bay windows -- if
Clark preferred.

It's -- it's certainly nowhere in Alfred's handbook, though, to
be fair, it's nowhere in Alfred's omnibus edition, either.

Clark is looking around, making a point of *showing* Tim
that he's looking around, and, when he's done, the
expression on his face is a question for him. He's not
sure --

"The sheets with the shield of your -- House are. In the
laundry, actually," he says, because, somehow, feeling
unsure is an excellent goad to the part of him which just
wants to say too many varieties of too much.

"You weren't joking -- they make *linen* out of that?"

"I -- Superboy -- and his agent -- aren't entirely wrong-
headed about copyright, when it comes to…" Tim bites his
lip again -- *stops*. "You are an icon."

"I -- I'm not the only one," Clark says, and touches him
lightly just beneath his chin.

This time, the touch lingers -- even after Tim has looked
up.

"Robin… not that this is something we should work overly
to consider, but… Dick is always telling *me* that I'm too
shy."

"You think -- I think I may have used up a large amount of
my stored assertiveness, already."

Clark's smile is… Clark is several years younger than Bruce,
but he doesn't seem that way when he smiles like this. "I
have to admit -- I would've liked to listen when you
explained to Dick and Alfred about Bruce's distinct drop in
efficiency."

"I'm not sure I did very much breathing -- for the next week.
Or so."

Clark's expression is bemused, but his eyes are laughing.
"I'm sure I don't understand why. Your… unofficial family
has always seemed so very welcoming."

"Yes," Tim says, and he knows he doesn't have to hide his
smile. "They're all very open as people, unfettered by
anything resembling social difficulties. Bruce, I've heard, is
the absolute *life* of the JLA."

"It's true," Clark says, and his eyes are starting to crinkle
now, "why, I don't think I can count the number of times
the Watchtower has -- rung with the sounds of our --"

"Horrified screams?"

"Is *that* what they were? Tim, I -- would you like to have
dinner with me?"

"Oh, there's… there's a casserole, in the refrigerator
downstairs. It's --"

"I -- I'm afraid I don't eat meat, Tim, there's just --"

"-- vegetarian."

"Really," and Clark's smile is even wider, warmer and --

"You. Well. Bruce's files on you are extensive."

It's not that he wanted that smile to go away, it's just that it
felt wrong to take credit for something not in his own
observations. He's never actually *seen* Clark eat anything,
after all. He'd assumed for years that he photosynthesized
in some way.

"I -- I've come to understand -- was that very disturbing?"

Clark blinks -- obviously -- and so may very well have
*been* blinking too rapidly to see for the past several
seconds. "I believe there's something -- Dick has, of course,
spoken to me quite a lot about you…"

"Oh."

"And Bruce hasn't been -- entirely -- silent."

"Really? I -- I would've thought --"

"And you…" Clark's fingers on his cheekbones are a light
brush. "You don't find that at all disturbing, and yet it
doesn't have anything to do with the fact that *my*
gathering of information was both informal and had at least
the patina of accident."

Patina of… yes, that's a very good way to describe it. "I…
I'm not sure if…" No, he's not going to lie to Clark. "I was
going to say something about spending the lion's share of
the past seventeen months with Bruce, but. I don't really
think that's the whole of it."

"No, I don't either," Clark says, and touches Tim's hair --
quickly enough that Tim can feel it *wanting* to move
against the determined will of his product -- and then takes
Tim's hand, lightly. "I'm intrigued by the sound of that
casserole."

"I imagine you -- well, I'm somewhat new to the world of
vegetarian cuisine, but I found it quite -- I hope you like it,"
he says, and then Clark is tugging him gently and --

Well, it would be strange enough to move through his home
with Clark if he were in civilian clothes. As it is, he's --
technically -- with *Superman*, and this --

If he lets himself, he could get entirely too -- *flustered* to
be anything resembling an entertaining host. "We haven't
done much decorating on this floor since moving in. I -- my
father is looking forward to being able to run up and down
stairs at will again --"

"I imagine so."

"But he's made it clear that this floor is basically mine *to*
decorate. I'm not -- I haven't had much inspiration, I'm
afraid."

"There's something to be said for minimalism, Tim," Clark
says, and smiles at him from over his shoulder. "Of course,
I imagine Bruce would be willing to donate the museum-
worthy contents of most of a wing if you asked."

He -- doesn't mean to shudder. "I -- I am fond of a lot of
the… all right, the truth is that the manor would be a lot
less disturbing if it was *Bruce* who was decorating, as
opposed to… Bruce Wayne."

Clark's laugh is brief, but still more than a hum. "The first
time he -- inflicted that persona on me I very nearly hit
him."

"The interesting thing -- there's at least one piece of
furniture or objet d'art in every room which *does* appeal
to the person he actually is. However, since each room --
except for the parts of the manor which, I understand, were
favored by his mother -- is decorated to be internally
consistent with itself and externally consistent with the
manor as a whole --"

"It can be difficult to tell?" Clark increases the pressure,
somewhat, as he leads them down the stairs.

"It's certainly an interesting exercise."

"Have you been able to guess correctly many times, then?"

"I think so. I'm not going to present my guesses to Bruce
until I've been over every room again at least once,
though."

"Of course not," Clark says, and that -- wasn't entirely
serious, but his eyes aren't really laughing, either.

Hm. "Clark?"

"I'd like to say you're like no one I've ever met, but -- that
isn't strictly, or even loosely, correct."

"Who --" Wait until he's eating, right. "I don't mean to be --"

"Wonderful?"

"I." There isn't really… what is he supposed to say to
*that*?

And this time, when Clark reaches out to touch him, he
*stops*. Just close enough -- he probably doesn't mean for
Tim to lean in until those fingers are on his cheek again,
but --

"Oh," Clark says, and *cups* Tim's face, and -- it's not at all
like being drugged. At least, not with any of the formulas
Bruce has been building his tolerance against. It's more
like --

Like being tired in a very specific and comfortable way, or
just being… warm.

"You -- Dick had given me the impression that you were
*difficult* to touch, that you were, perhaps, more like…
Bruce, in those regards."

"He -- he's hugged me." Three times.

"I'm not sure if he felt -- entirely welcome. Or -- I'm
speculating, of course, but --"

"Tell me. I -- please?"

"I believe one of the reasons why he felt -- feels that it's so
important that we become friends is that he's not sure if
he's the most appropriate person to *be* a friend to you."

"Oh, I don't --" He -- he was definitely going to say
something, but he'd also started to move, and Clark --

Clark's hand is very gentle, but it's also very… insistent, in
its own way. His hand is so *warm*.

"We must -- humans must seem so *cold* to you. I -- I
mean."

"I remember, of course, when I wasn't quite so warm as I
am now, and yet it's not strictly a sense-memory in more
than flashes. My mother's hugs, as an example."

He remembers that his mother's hands were small, smooth,
and very -- they always seemed so hard, and her nails --
she would always scratch very lightly at his scalp.

"Tim… oh, I'm -- I'm very sorry. I've never had the chance
to --"

"I don't -- could we not talk about -- that. I."

"Of course," Clark says, and Tim's face is cold when Clark
lets go, but it just leads to his *hand* being warm again,
so that's -- full of wonder, yes.

Clark lets him take the casserole out of the refrigerator, and
then lifts the container and inhales, deeply --

"Mmm. I haven't had organic barley in much too long," he
says, and smiles at Tim as though he were the one who'd
made it -- oh.

"I -- my father's physical therapist. I think -- I hope -- she's
becoming… involved with my father."

"Perhaps not traditionally appropriate, but if it leads to --
where…? Ah," Clark says, and there are two dinner forks in
his hand. "Really, with all of these fresh vegetables, it
would be a shame to reheat this *too* much, don't you
think?"

He hadn't even considered eating it cold. He's going to have
to familiarize himself with… maybe Alfred would teach him
how to cook… something.

Cold, the casserole tastes at first like a particularly
substantial salad, but then the spices come through --
there's something almost nutty about it, and it's both sweet
and tart --

Warm, it seemed to have less taste than sensations of
health, satisfaction, and moral superiority. Perhaps they
were never *supposed* to eat it as a casserole?

Belatedly, it occurs to Tim that they're standing at the sink
and eating directly out of a plastic container.

His mother wouldn't even know who he *is*, anymore. And
Alfred --

Alfred is probably taking back every friendly thought he's
ever had about Tim.

"We could -- sit down?"

"Mmm," Clark says, and holds up one of the fingers he's
using to hold the fork before swallowing, licking his lips,
and --

Smiles aren't that bright in real life. They require image
manipulation and fine acting and --

"Would you like to? I'm perfectly content to… well," he says,
and looks at Tim from beneath his lashes. "It seems the
thing to do when one has the house to one's self, yes?"

Some very, very strange scientist who had, at least, *once*
been employed by Cadmus, had programmed Superboy with
the phrase 'baching it.' There's comfort in the knowledge
that the concept -- and the expression with which the
phrase was uttered -- is most probably genetic. "I feel I
should call your parents in Smallville and --"

"You'd *tell* on me, Tim? I feel so," and Clark pops another
bite in his mouth, "betrayed."

Clark's cheek is pouched with -- grain salad? Something. --
and -- yes, that was another wink, and it feels to Tim like
the best kind of surrender to finally (it feels like a 'finally')
let Clark hold the container himself and jump up on the
counter.

He does feel a little ridiculous with his feet dangling, but,
somehow, it gets *better* when Clark holds up a fork
positively groaning with assorted grains and green bits and
raises an eyebrow.

Tim smiles, and opens his mouth, and --

And the fact that he *doesn't* wind up with probably-not-
casserole-at-all all over his shirt after Clark *kisses* him
before popping the forkful in has far more to do with shock
than anything else, and.

Clark is watching him chew, and just -- *watching* him,
and the happiness hasn't left his features, but his eyes seem
a little dark, a little wide, and --

Tim swallows.

"Was that all right?"

"Dick. Would you tell me who I remind you of?"

"Oh, I --" Clark coughs, and it sounds serious enough that
Tim can't really regret not waiting until he had more food in
his mouth. He's in the direct line of *fire*.

"I mean, that was -- a kiss. And I -- did you really want to
kiss -- me?"

"Very much so. I -- was I… wrong?"

No. Just -- no. But. "I think -- I think I'd really like to know
who I remind you of?"

"Lois. And Bruce. And yourself, with every passing. Tim --
please tell me I haven't made you uncomfortable?"

"You haven't, I just. I --" And the thing is, Clark had been
far enough away -- giving him *space* -- that Tim really
has to *lean* to get close enough to -- kiss Clark back.

He wants -- he isn't sure what he really *looks* like, right
now, with his hands clutching at the edge of the counter
and his eyes closed and Clark's mouth feels --

Like a mouth. Soft, and warm, and just a little wet with
saliva. He tastes a little like cilantro -- but then *he* starts
kissing, and his mouth doesn't feel like a mouth at *all*.

The container is still between them, and Tim's going to give
himself a welt on his chest if Clark doesn't move it. If Clark
doesn't --

It's not that Clark's mouth doesn't *move* like a mouth.
And -- and Tim has kissed Ariana, and he knows what those
motions *are* --

But even when Clark *opens* his mouth Tim can't really
feel softness, as opposed to feeling -- *Clark*.

And he winds up kicking the cabinet doors under the sink
with *both* feet when Clark slips his tongue inside --

When Clark slides the container out from between them and
sets it down --

When Clark cups his face, he kicks again, and he can't
really -- he's holding onto the counter so tight his *hands*
are starting to hurt, but he doesn't have to. And wrapping
his arms around Clark's neck just makes the kiss get deeper,
and --

Clark hasn't taken a *breath*.

That, along with the black explosions behind Tim's eyelids,
remind him that he hasn't either, and he'd actually
*perfected* this sort of thing with Ariana -- she likes long
kisses, too -- but at the moment he can't seem to remember
how to breathe through his nose, as opposed to how to lick
Clark's tongue again and again --

It has to be reflex that forces Tim back to gasp, because he
really doesn't remember telling his body to do that. He also
didn't tell his body to pant and stare, but there's nothing at
all he can do about that.

"Oh, Tim."

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"May I --"

"Yes. I -- I mean." He doesn't have to look down to know
that he's grabbing at the counter again. *Clutching* at it.
"Clark, you -- do you want to kiss me again?"

"Oh, yes," he says, and cups Tim's face, and strokes Tim's
cheekbones with his big, smooth, *warm* thumbs, and the
kiss --

He isn't sure if it's slower or not, but it *feels* that way.
Enough so that he can let go of the counter once more, and
*think* about where he wants to put his hands.

Only -- the only thing his brain seems to be coming up with
for that question is 'on Clark.'

He thinks it's probably a good start -- and *that* makes him
jerk a little and moan into Clark's *mouth*, because he
doesn't know what 'start' -- he doesn't know what *stop*
is --

And Clark *hums* into his mouth, pleased and wanting Tim
to *know* it, or maybe *feel* it, and cupping Clark's
shoulders feels like -- he doesn't know *what* it feels like,
he --

He doesn't *know*, and it sounds more like a whimper than
a moan this time --

And then he isn't sitting on the counter so much as pressed
against Clark's chest. His legs are still dangling, but it feels
a lot more severe -- or perhaps acute -- this time.

It's --

Clark's right *there*, and wrapping his legs around Clark's
waist almost feels good enough to make it not feel
*embarrassing* --

When Clark pulls back. "Tim?"

Almost. "I -- I -- sorry? I'll -- um --"

"Oh, no, this is -- oh, you're *lovely*," Clark says, and this
kiss is harder, hard enough to maybe almost distract from
the feel of one of Clark's hands sliding down to cup his
ass --

If some part of Tim's body hadn't been waiting -- hoping --
for just that.

He's -- he's getting *hard*, and he knows he's not supposed
to be pressing *closer* --

"Oh, Clark, please -- please don't stop kissing me -- I
mean -- *oh* --"

Clark's kissing his *throat* now, and Tim wishes he were
wearing a shirt without a collar, or maybe no shirt at all,
because Clark's acting like the fabric is Kryptonite, and the
first gentle *press* of Clark's lips around his Adam's
apple --

Tim doesn't know *what* that sound was. "Clark --" Yes he
does -- it's closer to a *gurgle* than anything else, and then
Clark *squeezes* his ass and his hips decide to divorce
themselves from his mind entirely and *pump*.

"Oh -- oh *God* --"

"Let me. Tim, may I take you to bed?"

"Yes," he says, and he doesn't actually think he was
answering Clark's question, but the point is very much
moot.

By the time Clark *stops* sucking -- too *lightly* -- at his
pulse point --

The last time he'd been touched there was by *Bruce* --

Batman, with the gauntlet cold and -- slick in a way that
had nothing to do with moisture -- he'd been running a
mild fever and --

And they're in Tim's bed. Clark's *over* him, hovering until
Tim's hands give up on waiting for him to say anything
about it and reach up to *pull* Clark down.

Or --

He's not really --

He's --

Oh, he's so *heavy*, and the only reason he can still
breathe is that Clark's still holding his chest away from Tim's
own. Clark doesn't taste like cilantro, anymore, and the
material of Clark's uniform feels impossibly basic and natural
compared to all the other uniforms he's (been touched by)
touched, and Tim can't let *go*.

Not even --

Clark actually starts to pull *away*, and he still can't --

And Clark smiles at him. "I assure you, I didn't intend to go
far."

"I -- oh. It's just -- yes, I'll let go."

When he does -- it feels like the same instant, or maybe the
instant *before* -- Clark catches one of Tim's hands and
kisses it, and then does the same with the other.

After that -- it's completely irrational to think that his hands
have been stunned into inaction -- as opposed to just his
mind -- but it feels that way. He has exactly enough control
to keep from plucking at his own clothes in a futile attempt
to make them go away with only the force of his desire and
a physical *suggestion* -- but that's pretty much the whole
of it.

And it takes Clark's fingers beneath his chin to make him
realize that he's just been *staring* at his own hands.

"I -- hi."

"Hello," Clark says, and the corners of his eyes --

Tim has never wanted to lick anyone there before. Now, he
suspects, he's going to have to be careful about staring.

"I didn't want to -- proceed too quickly for you," Clark says,
and it's almost as though Tim had actually managed to get
the question to the *front* of his mind.

Perhaps it's a matter of experience. "All right," Tim says.
"I -- it wasn't."

"I'm very glad to hear that. May I take off your shirt?"

He's thinking about it, about why that seems so -- different
than all of the kissing and the holding --

But while he was thinking his *head* was nodding, and
Clark lifts him just enough -- holds him there -- to tug the
shirt off with his other hand, up and over Tim's head --

"Oh, Clark, I…"

And even though it seems like he has a distinct *lack* of
words, it still feels very important to be held like this, half-
sitting, with one of Clark's hands supporting his back and
the other on his abdomen, resting there --

Pressing, lightly --

And then Clark lays him back down.

"Do you… what do you -- what should I do?"

"I'm not sure, Tim. But -- what I *want* you to do is just…
let me touch you, for a little while?"

"Yes, of course, I --"

"Of course?"

It feels like he should've been expecting this kiss, but it also
doesn't feel like any kiss he's had before. Beyond the
strength of it, beyond the fact that it still doesn't feel like
any human --

Of course it *shouldn't* feel like any human mouth, but also
Clark's smiling into the kiss, maybe -- laughing at him?

"Are you -- is this --"

"I've mentioned, I think, that you're wonderful."

"Yes, I -- "

This kiss is quick, but not soft, and so wet -- "And lovely,
very -- mm," Clark says, and licks Tim's mouth, licks it
open -- when and *why* had he closed it? -- licks Tim's
tongue and --

The hand on Tim abdomen is moving -- Clark is -- not quite
stroking. Clark's touching and -- of course it doesn't tickle.
Clark has too much control, and -- knowledge of the human
body and human movement that moves so far beyond the
encyclopedic --

Well, of course it's *atomic*. Of course Clark's fingers give
just the --

The 'right' touch would imply that there was a wrong one,
or maybe that the tension coiling tighter and tighter
*within* Tim was the only possible right answer. "I -- I
want you to touch me -- more," he says, and "I'm sorry, I
think I'm going to sound -- progressively stupider --
*Clark* --"

And that's Clark's *thumb* in his navel, and it's not -- it's
more of the *tension*, and Clark shifts -- flies? -- until he's
at a different angle to Tim's body, over Tim's body, and the
next time Tim says Clark's name it echoes back from Clark's
mouth into his own.

And the next.

And when Clark pulls away, this time, he's also stroking just
beneath the waistband of Tim's chinos -- Tim didn't mean
to bite Clark's lip.

"Oh," Clark says, and bites Tim back -- lightly. "All right?"

"Y-yes, I -- oh, I -- I'm very. Aroused."

"As am I. I'd like to -- hmm."

"Yes? You -- you could --"

Another quick kiss, another *bite*, and Tim feels his hips
jerking, and now Clark's fingers are moving through the
sparse hair beneath his navel, not -- still not ticklish, and
he thinks, maybe, it would be easier if some of the touches
weren't perfect.

He doesn't know what he means by 'easier.' He --

"I -- Tim, you should tell me if --"

"What," is what he has time to say, the *power* to say,
before Clark moves -- Clark presses -- "oh, Clark, you -- I
feel --"

"You feel -- me," Clark says, and his laugh isn't light, or --
the laugh is low, rough, slightly breathy, and Tim doesn't
think he could ever describe the feel of Clark's *heat* --

He's *hard* under his suit, and it's not -- there's no armored
jock at all, of course. Just -- enough for *modesty*, and it
feels like -- It's an awkward reach the way they're
positioned, Clark is pressed to his thigh, and Tim feels a
little like -- something squirming and restless and young --

"Oh, you -- would you like to touch me, Tim --"

"Yes, I want --" Exactly what he *has*, and he does
register -- dimly -- the sound of Clark's quiet moan, but
mostly just -- heat. *Size*. It is, in fact, completely irrational
to believe that the images currently in Tim's mind would, in
reality, be anything but deeply (literally) painful without a
great deal of -- preparation *and* practice, but they're there
just the same.

They're *real* now, just as if *this* was what he was
imagining while he was waiting for Clark on the roof, as
opposed to just another night of talking, being -- around
each other.

Superman and Robin.

He -- he doesn't feel like Robin, right now.

"Tim, you -- oh," Clark says, and laughs again, "oh, I
think -- you'll make me ejaculate very quickly if you don't --
ah, lovely, *lovely*," and Tim knows, intellectually, that
Clark is responding to his own desperation, to the way he's
moving his hips with the *exact* same rhythm that he's
using to stroke Clark through the tights, but it feels like the
whole of him has become, somehow, *transcendent* --

It's precisely the right sort of irrational to allow him the
dexterity to -- finally -- open his pants with his free hand.

"Oh, Tim, are you -- we really don't have to --"

"Please touch me, please -- I -- *please*."

"Happily," Clark says, "if you… like this?"

And Clark's hand is right *there*, and there's a moment
during which Tim feels himself to have a very distinct choice:
He can either continue to stare brainlessly at the sight of his
own erection resting against the impossibly hard (*alien*)
webbing between Clark's thumb and forefinger, or he can
squeeze his eyes shut and hope that coming all over himself
will cause an eventual return to higher brain function.

And then it isn't a choice, and Tim's surprised that his groan
came out sounding quite that *deep* --

Until he realizes that he'd stopped breathing again at some
point *and* is biting his lip -- and that Clark is rocking,
rhythmically, against the hand Tim has clenched around
him through the tights.

"Oh -- *sorry*," he says, and Clark gasps --

It's just that Clark also didn't let Tim jerk his hand away, like
he'd honestly intended -- right, *Clark*. Not someone -- not
just some human male.

"H-harder?"

"Just -- ah -- no, I'm sorry, you feel -- let me --"

It's more than a little *boggling* to hear -- *watch* -- Clark
losing his coherence because of -- because *Tim* had made
him --

Well, it's impressive, among other things, and it's even more
than that when Clark moves to straddle him. He's -- very,
very tall, in this position. More than usual. More than -- well,
Tim's used to being shorter -- or much shorter -- than
everyone even tangentially in his life, but that feeling isn't
the same as this one.

And Clark still has Tim's hand pressed against him through
Clark's shorts and tights… Tim thinks he can feel *wetness*
through them, and while Tim's aware that that's what the
fabrics most people wear on a daily basis *do*…

It's different, it's *all* different.

It's *sex*.

And it's no less or more than that when Clark says,

"Ah, a moment --"

And all of a sudden -- the edges of Tim's sheet and duvet
ripple, slightly, in Clark's wake -- Clark is naked.

"I meant to move more -- is this all right?"

Clark is naked. Naked, and… naked. Very --

Tim is… mostly naked, with his pants and briefs down
around his thighs, but Clark is very naked. It's not fair that
he's just had an orgasm and is already back to being an
idiot in his own brain. Still, judging by Clark's expression --
heat now, not just warmth…

Going by that, the way Tim's staring now probably at least
works a little. Bruce has really only taught him the *basics*
behind sketching -- just enough to make it easier to put his
own designs and thoughts down on the page -- and Tim
*hadn't* planned to ask for more, but…

"Bruce could draw you, I -- um."

"I imagine -- he's very talented at many things, Tim…?"

"I just -- I couldn't draw you. Not -- not the way you are --"
And Tim can't really -- he shakes his head, and he reaches
out, and Clark catches his hands. "No…? I thought you
wanted me to --"

"I do," Clark says, and, somehow, the smile lines at the
corners of his eyes are even more -- more, now. As if they
were always meant to be a seen with everything --

Absolutely everything --

Absolutely *embarrassing* (if not, at this point in his life,
precisely *weird*) to feel Clark pushing Tim's hands through
the semen on Tim's abdomen --

He really had just -- *come* on himself, like… exactly like
had always seemed plausible should he actually wind up
having sex with… well. He has an active fantasy life, and
this is both normal for the world in which he gets to know
people like Clark and the rest of the world, too.

Still, it's a little hard to *look* at the semen on his fingers --
and Clark's --

"Is this… too much?"

He remembers his mother bragging, once, about the joys of
having a *fastidious* child. He liked that -- joys. And --

"Tim…?"

"No, I -- well, yes, it feels -- sticky."

Clark's smile is small, and -- it *looks* like the sort of smile
which most people would be private about, but he's not
using it that way. It's for him.

It's --

"If you'd like, I'd be perfectly willing to bring us some warm,
wet cloths…? But -- if I could have a favor, first…"

"Well, I -- yes, go ahead -- *oh*."

Somehow --

Almost certainly this is going to turn out to have a great deal
to do with how much of his sexual knowledge is clinical,
rather than pornographic -- it can't possibly be as strange
and new a thing to use one's semen to… *slick* the penis
of another man as it feels like.

To be fair, it feels like he's just "gotten" something almost
fundamental.

"You -- Clark, I think you're allowed to laugh at the
expression I feel sure is currently on my face."

"Oh, no, you -- you feel far too good for me to *laugh*.
Although, that never seems to stop Dick."

"I just never thought, somehow -- Dick."

"Mmm, Tim, you really should -- when you squeeze me that
way --"

When he squeezes that way, his hands start to *slide*,
and -- he'd read a lot about foreskins after that one
particular shower with Dick, but --

*Dick*.

"You -- you do this with." Of course he does. Of course --
why doesn't he have any of it on *camera*? And really, it's
a good thing that his hands have recovered their ability to
do things without conscious command --

*Dick*.

"I don't plan to laugh at this expression, either," Clark says,
low and serious, and --

And the finger on his lower lip is *wet*, and the smell -- the
smell and the feel is exactly what -- Clark's *penis* --

Dick has -- and they have --

"Oh… yes, like that, please," Clark says, and Tim realizes
he's been… not shaking his head. Moving it, back and forth,
getting his mouth -- *wet*.

"Clark I -- I think I want you to -- to come *on* me," he
says, and it's too much of a shock to hear that coming out
of his own mouth for him to really --

"How."

Except that now he can blush, now… Clark's eyes on him
are so focused, so serious and *dark* -- the sky in the
evening, or just before dawn. Some… some secret time
which maybe doesn't -- shouldn't -- have any place here, in
his father's house --

"Please, Tim. Please tell me… what you'd prefer."

"I -- I don't know, I just -- does it seem strange to you
that -- that --"

"Yes. Yes?" And Clark almost -- it's like he's *rolling* his
hips to push his penis into Tim's hands, to slide it *out*
again --

"Oh God -- I -- I'm. You're making me so --"

"I'm not -- I'm hardly immune," Clark says, and his exhale
sounds like a laughing moan, or maybe a moan which was
going to be a laugh before Tim *squeezed* again, as hard
as he could --

"I wish I was stronger, and I -- it just -- somehow it feels
better to do this here --"

"In your bed…? Your home…?"

"My -- you know this -- the house is connected to -- I --"

"Oh, *Robin*," Clark says, and there's something --
something about his voice which almost seems -- no.

That's not. That wasn't --

"Please tell me what you want -- there's nothing you can ask
for I wouldn't give, Tim," Clark says, solemn and -- almost
*breathless*, and Tim doesn't understand --

Tim *knows* he's reasonably ignorant about the practical
realities, the possibilities -- it's just that it doesn't seem
possible for someone to sound so *confident*, so sure --

"Or, perhaps -- I'm sorry, Tim, I'm being… unfair to you, oh,
your hands are so very -- mm," Clark says, and -- uses his
free hand to *stop* Tim.

Superman. Just -- he's so hard, and so -- his penis is so
*dark*, and he'd *stopped* him -- "Should I --" Clark's
fingers are starting to feel sticky -- a little -- against his
mouth, starting to -- "I can't… I can't really -- oh."

He'd just licked Clark's fingers -- himself off --

"Please --" It's like a kiss --

And Clark's watching him, his mouth sort of -- pursed. Biting
his lip just makes his teeth slip -- a little -- and it's such a
relief to finally just *lick* his lips that it's a surprise when
Clark's the one who gasps.

Until he thinks about what it would look like -- *feel* like --
were the positions reversed.

"You're very -- for some reason," Clark says, and presses,
gently, against Tim's mouth with his fingers, "I keep finding
myself distracted."

Pressing -- oh. Oh, if he just --

"Tim," and it sounds like an answer, or an acknowledgment,
and Clark's fingers are big, warmer than what's on them,
than his mouth -- his mouth must seem so *cold* to Clark,
but he doesn't seem --

It doesn't seem to bother Clark, at all, but still -- at least he
could -- he can suck them, and that -- it's easier than
anything else, easier than thinking, easier than watching
Clark look at him like he's something more, better that just
himself.

It's -- even more *sex*, or sexual -- suggestive and slick --

It's all right to be an idiot in his own mind, to babble and
just go on and on and *on* about things like fingers,
mouths, his own semen, human temperature -- with his
eyes closed and his lips wrapped around Clark --

He's aware, of course, that he's not really licking Clark
*clean* as opposed to just transferring some of the
hundreds of different varieties of bacteria currently living in
his mouth to Clark's fingers, but -- there's something
compelling about it just the same, beyond even the
suggestiveness.

It's the hand of the most powerful being on the planet -- the
most powerful being (hopefully) within hundreds of millions
of miles -- and --

"If you want me to ejaculate *on* you…would you like me
to masturbate, or to provide something more…
intercrural?"

It takes a moment to pull his thoughts away from Clark and
Clark's *hand* to put a meaning to the word, but -- really.
Oh. For a moment it doesn't seem like Clark especially
wants to remove his fingers from Tim's mouth when Tim
starts to pull back -- and honestly, this is an attitude he can
understand, at the moment -- but, after pushing them just
a little deeper than they were a moment before, he does
slide them out.

He --

It's just that it's so slow, so -- wet. Tim knows he is -- he
can *feel* himself -- trying to follow Clark's fingers --

"Oh, Tim, may I --"

"Yes," but he's already straddling Clark's thighs, hands
caught between them -- Clark's still sticky hand rubbing,
pushing against his abdomen. He's -- all of that *skin*.

"Eventually -- I'm a little worried that I'll ask you something,
and you'll say 'yes' so openly and freely --"

"But I won't -- theoretically -- want what you do?"

"Well, yes. And speaking of what you want…"

"The… the intercrural. You -- your penis between my
thighs --"

"Diana would be happy to know that Classical education
hasn't missed your generation entirely, I'm sure," Clark
says. "May I -- if I simply…"

Clark shifts Tim backwards, slightly, and --

For a moment Tim's reaching with both hands between his
own thighs, leaning over a little, leaning closer -- he can
*smell* Clark -- but Clark tugs Tim's arms and, this time, at
least, Tim can make himself let go. Still -- "Should I… kneel
up?"

"Please, and -- oh Tim, *yes*," Clark says, and kisses Tim's
forehead once, again.

He can't possibly have the muscular strength it would take
for this to feel truly -- no. No human does, and yet he
must -- they all must -- clearly have *enough*. What would
the differences between humans *mean* on that sort of
scale, anyway?

"Tell me -- Tim, please tell me if I can --"

"*Yes*," Tim says, and "don't worry, I -- *oh* --" because
Clark is *holding* his thighs together and the thrust of his
hips --

Upward, on just enough of a diagonal that his penis is
stroking against Tim's scrotum, and Tim can -- they're not
so close that he can't look down and *watch*, and it's
entirely possible that he'd try to pull back if they were.

Clark's holding his thighs tight enough together that they're
forcing Clark's foreskin to slide a little, or maybe Clark's
foreskin is forcing the skin of his thighs to tighten, relax --
"Clark, you -- oh, does it feel --"

"I'd like -- I think I'd like to have you on your back, Tim."

He can't move, Clark's holding him in *place*, but then he's
*being* moved, again (he moves *Dick*, pushes and holds,
spreads), and Clark's above him, hovering above, watching
him --

In this position, it's a little harder to *see* what Clark's
doing, but it's easier -- it *seems* easier to feel it, to know
that Clark's not-quite-fucking him this way, and --

Well, he can still reach between them. His own penis has
decided that it wants to lie against his abdomen, but
pushing it down -- just the act of it, knowing what he's
doing --

"Oh -- *yes*, Tim. I absolutely should have suggested --
frottage --"

"Please, I -- *please* --"

"May I -- I'd like to stay…"

"No, I mean -- not yet, but --"

"Anything, you're so very lovely," and for just a second
some of Clark's weight is holding him down, holding them
in position --

The head of Clark's penis is nudging at the cleft of Tim's
*ass* --

And Clark's kissing him softly and starting --

"Oh, yes, Clark, *faster* --"

"Ah -- thank you, beautiful, so -- Robin," he says, and again
his voice isn't quite --

It doesn't -- oh. "Clark…"

"If that's what you'd like… little brother," he says, and
that --

"Oh -- oh, no, I -- "

"Shh, it's all right. I'm right here, Tim."

It's too -- it's *Dick*, and he can't -- he has to -- "Dick, I -- I
mean, no, Clark, I --"

"You don't know how much I think about you, little
brother…"

And Tim -- his hips -- he can't, he's shaking, Clark's still
holding him in place -- but oh, Dick is strong enough, too.
More than strong enough --

And if he wanted --

If they were this close --

"D-D-Dick, I -- oh, please, don't stop --"

"I won't, don't worry. I've got you, and it's all okay…"

And he knows -- of course he knows -- but --

But then --

Movement, air, wind -- Tim's on his stomach now, and Dick
couldn't do *that*, but --

"I just want to look at all of you at *once*, Tim," and Dick --
oh, if Dick really --

He could -- Tim *can't*, and he can't move his thighs, but
his hips -- he can work his hips against the sheets, over and
over, and Dick moans, soft and low and sweet and quiet --

And Tim bites at the sheets and screams and comes, all over
the sheets, he -- he just changed his bed two days ago, his
father would wonder --

"Oh, *Tim*. I -- I've always wanted a little brother…"

He -- he thinks he may have just growled, and now he's
whimpering, almost whining, it *hurts* to be this hard
again, to need this *much*. He shouldn't --

"And you're so very --"

"*Please*, Clark, *don't*," and it comes out yelled, cracked
and breaking in his throat, and that's when Tim knows that
he's been sobbing. His face --

His cheeks are wet, and Clark --

It's Clark pushing between his thighs, fucking between his
thighs, making his scrotum feel -- not quite raw, but --

"Are you -- oh, are you all right, Tim?"

He can breathe, he can -- it's Clark again, and he's so good,
he's so -- he's Superman and he's *Clark*, and it's okay if
Clark has him, because -- friends can know what you think,
what you want --

"You should understand -- ah, yes, please keep moving your
hips -- you should understand that everyone has -- needs.
Including me. Including... Dick."

"I."

It is, of course, all he can get *out* before he realizes --
he's been watching Dick for years. Every chance he could,
and it was always -- it's always so easy to not be seen when
the person you're watching is watching -- focused on --
someone. Else.

Which is -- he doesn't want to think about Bruce and Dick,
right now, he doesn't want -- it's not *fair* to let anything
(else) distract him from Clark --

"I knew you'd understand. And you -- you don't know how
much pleasure I get from *your* pleasure --"

"As much as I -- you -- oh, I want to -- taste you, I think
I --"

"Let me *stay*, Robin, right here, let me --"

"Oh -- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't mean --"

"*No* --"

Wind again, motion again, and he's on his back, and Clark's
penis isn't between his thighs, anymore -- oh, if Tim were a
woman he could have it between his *breasts*, pushing
toward his face, over and over --

But Clark catches him before he can move enough to even
really *start* crawling toward him, and lays him flat --

"You are beautiful, and the fact that you madden me only
makes you more so," Clark says, stern as a *lesson*, and
Tim hears himself gulp, and spreads his legs, and just *lets*
Clark push them back together again, flexes his quads and
tries to -- lift his legs from the bed, a little --

Lift and set them down, try to -- Clark's penis is so *slick*,
and his eyes…

His eyes aren't really dark, at all. They… they're just a little
reddened now --

("Subject reports onset of heat powers related to sexual
arousal --")

He looks --

He looks utterly inhuman like this, beautiful and strange,
beautiful *because* he's so strange, so different and
powerful, and Tim can't quite reach his shoulders, but it's
incredible to just stroke over Clark's chest.

With one hand.

In this position, his own penis -- the air is *cold* on all the
slickness on him, all the sexual *mess*, and even though
it's a little scary to do anything but lie there when Clark is
looking at him like that, even though it feels a little like
moving through the Cave when Bruce is there but he
doesn't know where --

He *has* to, and when he starts pushing the head of his
own penis back down toward where Clark is thrusting,
Clark -- *smiles* at him, and it's -- it's still a warm smile,
still a *soft* smile --

"You're incredible like this, Robin," he says, and doesn't
quite close his mouth when he's finished. His head is tilted
back, and he's looking down at Tim, and his eyes are so
red, so --

He --

The first *touch* -- friction -- *oh* --

He wants Clark to stroke him to orgasm, he wants Clark to
suck him, he wants to rub himself against him, he wants --

Tim wants everything, now, but especially just this: the slide
of the head of his penis against Clark's shaft, Clark's penis
between his thighs -- the heat and the wet -- sticky and
slick --

"*Clark* --"

"It's all right," he says, and it's not -- *quite* Dick, but --

"Oh -- oh *Clark* --"

The orgasm forces him upright with a scream for the pain
which only *part* of him can touch, jerks him up just in
time to see his semen splattering Clark's hand and penis --

Making him *wet* --

"Oh," Clark says, "oh, I think -- I think --"

And Tim isn't sure who he'll be thinking about -- much less
what -- every time he hears Clark moan in his head.

*
[There'd probably be more plot here, so… hmm. Talk
amongst yourselves, I guess?]

*

He can admit that he's been -- pushy.

He can even admit that 'pushy' is something of an
understatement.

He can *even* admit that 'pushy' is kind of an *obscene*
understatement --

Still, it's *Tuesday*. Clark had had -- Dick had checked --
nearly two full days (with breaks for his own duties,
naturally) to visit Tim and he still hasn't even flown *past*
Dick's apartment to let him know what had happened. If
he and Tim --

Well, of course he could just *ask* Tim -- he can certainly
imagine Clark *thinking* he can, and maybe even assuming
he *would*. But Clark, well.

Maybe if Clark's spaceship had crash-landed somewhere on
the Wayne grounds and *he'd* grown up to be Robin, or
Nightwing or Flamebird, Dick guesses --

Clark understands a *lot* -- he's an understanding kind of
guy -- but he doesn't really understand this.

Every time Dick's so much as *around* Tim --

Well, he's a professional at what he does, if at nothing else,
and even assuming Bruce had ever wanted to do so, it's not
like he could *hide* Robin once he started taking the
streets.

There've been nights -- a few of them, now -- when Dick
has gotten to see the kid in action, gotten to watch him…

He's so different from how *both* Dick and Jason were.
He's so… he starts out neat, professional enough to make
Dick have to qualify himself every time he thinks the word,
heh, but there are little things.

Smug little smiles. *Amused* little smiles.

He likes spray-painting taggers with their own paint. He
likes -- Dick's gotten to see this twice -- giving a little
come-on to the thugs who are too drunk or stupid to realize
that they aren't up against a kid, they're up against Robin.

No jokes, no taunting, and the smiles are so small that Dick
has to use the scope just to be sure they're *there*…

He's different, he's this whole… interesting and scary little
person, with an arsenal on him which would make an Arrow
nod in approval and a serious addiction to hair gel.

Dick likes that person -- he likes that person a *lot*.

And it's a completely different person than the one *he*
gets to see, more often than not.

And it's not that he *doesn't* like to see Tim smile at him
like he's the best thing since ice cream -- who wouldn't?

And it's really -- dangerously -- cute to watch him stammer
and blush, but -- Dick can't ask *that* kid whether or not
Clark had rocked his little world, and how he'd done it, and
if he'd done that thing with his tongue where it seemed like
it couldn't possibly feel any better if Clark *was* fucking
him --

They probably didn't --

It had taken *him* five different -- heh -- encounters to get
Clark to let him suck him off, and Tim doesn't really strike
Dick as that *assertive*. Then again… there's Robin to
consider, and the fact that they're all Robin and
themselves.

Dick Grayson had been kind of a mouse, stunned out of the
mind and body of the kid raised by John and Mary, stuffed
into a sweater-vest, and sent out to look good for the
cameras every now and again.

Tim Drake would probably look perfectly normal in a
sweater-vest and terminal shyness-for-the-Mission. But the
Robin in him --

And, okay, so maybe he needs to ask himself if it was
actually his *plan* to get Clark to fuck the Robin in Tim out
of the shadows and into a place where Dick could play with
him, know him, be *with* him --

He likes his little brother a lot. He can't believe --

He can't believe he'd *forgotten* how much he used to
*want* his parents to have another child, just so he could
be the big brother to someone. But he wants… he wants
Robin, too.

Which is reason enough to climb up to the roof of his
building, climb and flip up onto the water tower, and say,
"Clark, you can't leave me *hanging* like this. I mean, I
thought you *liked* me."

And then there's the long-term Clark game:

Time how long it takes for Clark to get him there, and then,
later, check the news-wires and see if you can match up the
disaster to how long it had taken Clark to answer the
summons.

He's averaging about thirty-two seconds for mudslides large
numbers of people need to be evacuated out of the path
of. (Sometimes, just sometimes, Dick lets himself think
about how it used to be more like four minutes, and how
*that* had seemed impossible and huge… Clark gets more
powerful every day Sol is Sol.)

Anyway, tonight it takes nearly a whole minute, which
means something huge was happening somewhere --
maybe in orbit? -- but Clark looks more flustered than
stressed, so Dick feels a little less guilty.

"Sorry about that --"

"*Details*!"

"I'm… sorry?"

Okay… okay. It *is* entirely possible that Clark would think
Dick *wouldn't* ask, but he has no right to believe that Dick
wouldn't need to *know*. "Little brother! What happened?"

"Oh, well, we had a very nice dinner --"

"He's vegetarian?"

"I don't believe so, but he happened to have a nice salad on
hand -- wonderful organic wheat berries -- and we ate it
together."

Happened to? Had Robin already reared his spiky head?
"Okay, so, dinner," Dick says, and flips up onto his hands.
"What else?"

"Well, we -- Dick, really, don't you think --"

"If you *did* have sex -- make love with him, did you or did
you not mention that we'd been hooking up for years?"

Clark sighs, and -- well, Dick is fully aware that Clark can
glare in a very intimidating manner when he puts his mind
to it, it's just that a) Dick grew up with Batman, b) Clark
never glares that hard at *him*, and c) Dick grew up with
*Batman*.

"You know you told him. *I* know you told him -- was he
surprised? He knows so much, I -- that kid had to be either
Robin or lobotomized for the safety of humanity. So tell
*me*," Dick says, and springs from his hands down off the
water tower and onto his feet again. "Please?"

"I -- honestly, Dick, could we at least go *inside*?"

"Did *you* go inside?"

"Dick!"

Dick snickers, rocking on his heels and dodging and weaving
from the blows Clark would never, ever aim at him. "Oh, I'm
just getting started."

For a second, the glare gets a lot more serious, but then it's
like a stiff wind on a cloudy day, and the sun is right there
again. Clark is right there -- his Clark. Dick leans in -- maybe
lunges -- and kisses Clark on the mouth and wraps his arms
around his neck.

"Mi casa," says Dick, "es su casa."

"I've always hoped so," Clark says, then lifts Dick and flies
them both inside, where Dick can wriggle out of Clark's grip
and let himself fall back onto the couch.

"Come *on*, Clark. I don't want to break out the
thumbscrews, but I'm willing to do it. For -- uh -- maybe
justice?"

"Really Dick, how do you think your *little brother* would
feel if he heard this conversation?"

"Well, it would serve him right for bugging my
*apartment* -- hey. Has he? Yet?"

Clark looks around -- making a show of it just for him -- "As
near as I can tell, there are only your bugs, Bruce's bugs,
and -- I'm reasonably sure the rest are Oracle's."

Babs is bugging him now? Really? That's just -- Dick makes
a note to -- try to -- return the favor. He's actually world-
class at planting surveillance devices; it's just that everyone
in his family is *better* at it. How had Oracle *gotten*
bugs in here?

Knowing her, however it happened *won't* be on his
surveillance tapes when he checks. But --

The point. "Okay, I'm gonna assume Bruce has just been
keeping him too busy, otherwise I might be a little hurt,
considering."

Clark's smile is kind of the definition of 'wry.' "I'm sure it's
just an oversight. But -- really, Dick, don't you think this is
a little too personal?"

Yes, he does. He really does. But…

"Oh, Dick, please don't look at me like that."

"The more I know, the more *comfortable* I'll feel around
him, and then maybe I won't have to pimp you out
anymore," he says, and waits.

"Not that I minded, per se --"

"Not that you *minded*, because *you* got to see the
Robin -- the *Tim* -- who disappears under a thousand
different blushes every time I get close -- didn't you?"

"Well -- yes, he's really extremely droll, and Dick -- you do
need to realize how important your opinion is to him."

Droll. He's -- "He's droll for you? I'm *jealous*. I -- I had to
break out the Monty Python references even to get that sly
little smile --"

"It's a very nice smile, yes --"

"It's a smile that's been making you think hot, dirty, *dirty*
thoughts about Lois for *years*, now, and -- you kissed
him."

"I…" Clark slumps, a little. "I did. I -- he kept making me
laugh, and there was that wonderful *salad*, and he was
smiling at me -- there were also blushes."

"But not the kind that make him go dead silent except for
the thunderous pound of his stout little heart," Dick says,
and *looks* at Clark.

"No, it's true, there weren't those. Not even… well," Clark
says, taking off his cape, lifting Dick's legs, and sitting down
next to Dick on the couch before resting Dick's legs on his
lap.

"Did you -- were you naked with him?"

"It seemed… the way he was touching me… it was either
that or make a terrible mess."

"Ohh…" and also oh. That's.

"Dick…?"

"Yeah, I -- am absolutely thinking about him jerking you
off."

"Are you."

And that's -- that tone -- Dick looks up, and -- yeah. That
one. Clark's look is frankly, openly speculative, and. Really
yes. "You know, the first time you looked at me like that -- I
can't even remember much about the next several minutes,
because my brain was just -- gone. Just so you know."

"Mm," Clark says, and strokes Dick's shins.

Belatedly, it occurs to Dick that he shouldn't wander around
on his roof in *just* boxers, but… well. "'Mm?'"

"Technically -- if I'm sure about when you're referring to --
that wasn't the first time I looked at you that way."

"You're a dirty, dirty alien and one day Batman is going to
have to bring you in."

"For justice, Dick…?"

"Absolutely. And… wow. His hands… he's got -- wow."

"Yes, I -- his hands were wonderful on me, against my
mouth, around me -- yes."

"Are you trying to distract me into having sex with you?
Because it's not going to work. I -- I'm celibate," Dick says,
and shoves his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers.
Just to… well, it's a warm night. Sweaty, itching. He's just
getting comfortable.

"I'm crushed, Dick -- celibacy?"

"Well, I mean, it's occurred to me," Dick says, tugging the
waistband a little away from himself and then lowering it
again, "I've kind of let sex rule large, important areas of my
life. My focus -- my ability to focus is kinda terrible."

Clark slides his hand up to Dick's knee, making the hairs on
his leg stand up and remind him to shave -- wait, no, not
anymore. "Perhaps I could help with that?"

"Absolutely. *Does* Lois have hard little hands? Her writing
callus must be huge and -- hard, at least. Mm. Hard little
writing hands, working hands -- did you know Tim trained
with Lady *Shiva*?"

"The --"

"Yes, the *assassin*. He had to show me some of the things
she'd taught him on a *dummy*. He *broke* the dummy."

"Mm," Clark says, and slips his hand under Dick's knee to
play with the small, wonderful bundle of nerves there,
"that's very disturbing. Though it would certainly explain
the… intensity of his touch."

"Ohh God. Tell me. Was he -- were you on his bed?"

"In his father's house. Which -- he seemed to feel that it
was only appropriate because of the way the house is
connected to the Cave."

"God, *only* Bruce -- hey. Did you talk about -- about
Bruce?"

"Not… while we were making love."

For a fleeting, ridiculous moment, it's tempting to protest
that he *might* not have meant -- that. It doesn't matter
that it's Clark, and that he has *always* known. Some
things…

Dick isn't naked enough to be entirely comfortable talking
about that, yet.

"Dick…? Are you all right?"

"I -- yeah. I just. I'm not sure how I'd feel about you…
doing what you do. Ah. God, I'm ridiculous," Dick says, and
pulls one of his hands out of his boxers. His palm needs to
be placed firmly over his face. "Just assume that I'm never
getting over those issues, mmkay?"

"You know it doesn't bother me --"

"And you know it *has* to bother me. God, Tim doesn't --
Tim doesn't need to be in love with Bruce. Really. At all."

"I…" Clark shifts his hand to cup the cap of Dick's knee
again. "I don't think you've ever said it quite that plainly
before."

Dick laughs, a little. He knows it's not a good laugh. "Most
of the time I don't really -- can't really think about it that
way. Because it's not like the things I've felt for… well, for
you, and for Kory and Babs… it's not like anything else, and
anyway," he says, removing his other hand from his boxers
and sitting on his elbows. "Tell me more. Did he taste you?"

"I --"

"You didn't let him taste you. You were big and mean and
Superman, and distracted him with other things. He wanted
to, though. Didn't he?"

"He -- mentioned, yes, Dick, but --"

"He actually *said* it?"

Clark squeezes Dick's knee and goes back to stroking him.
"If I'm -- reading him correctly, he'd… studied sex,
extensively, before --"

"You got him to *say*, out loud, that he wanted to suck you
off --"

"Technically, he just said 'taste,' Dick --"

"And you -- oh, you're a cruel man. I hereby demand that
you shove your dick in his mouth if he ever gets up the
nerve to ask again --"

"*Dick* --"

"You don't know how hard it is to spit that *out* when
you're fourteen and horny enough to beat up criminals with
your *dick*, Clark."

"Well, really, Dick, there's something to be said for being
ready enough *to* say it," Clark says, and he's being so
prim right there that the only possible response is for Dick
to sit up more, grab Clark's hand, and place it firmly on
Dick's own crotch.

Or -- certainly the two things had seemed to be related a
moment ago -- "Oh, Clark, no fair vibrating like that -- fuck,
fuck, that one time with *Wally* --"

"Speedsters can be very… well. Why don't you tell me?"

"I couldn't *touch* my own dick for *days*. It looked like I
had a sunburn and also Wally couldn't look me in the eye
for more than a few seconds at a time until after he
managed to kiss a girl without accidentally knocking her
unconscious."

"Oh. I… see," Clark says, and stops vibrating.

"I didn't say *stop*, I said it was no *fair* -- but actually,
no, wait, don't vibrate again. What *else* did he ask you
for? And beg you for, and demand you do to him right this
instant -- oh, no, go straight to the begging," and Dick --
after patting Clark's hand to keep it right where it is -- lies
back down.

"He -- technically, the only specific thing he begged for was…
ah."

"Ah?" Ah sounds very, very interesting. "What's 'ah?'"

"We were… practicing intercrural intercourse --"

"Oh, right between the thighs -- I. Wow. He's so *lean*. It
must've felt --"

"Very -- very firm, and I -- I'm not sure if he was even aware
that he was flexing, rhythmically, around me, but -- he was,"
and Clark squeezes him, gently, and sort of just -- holds Dick
like that.

"Man, I… how? Against a wall? On your knees?"

"We were on our knees, but then I -- he looked so very
beautiful --"

He would've been… flushed, panting. Probably utterly
incapable of closing his mouth or looking away, and Clark's
dick -- so big and *hot*, pushing -- mm. "Keep going,
keep -- what did he beg for, exactly?"

"He -- after I laid him down. He asked -- he begged me not
to stop," Clark says, and that.

That didn't sound like an 'ah' kind of thing. Maybe another
'mm,' but not an 'ah.' Dick sits up on his elbows again and
gives Clark his best, 'remember that I *am* a trained
detective, please,' look.

And Clark looks… sheepish. There's definitely an 'ah' in
there *somewhere*.

"Okay, so you were fucking his thighs -- long, runner's
thighs on that little body. Coltish. Hard."

"Beautiful," Clark says, again, and he seems to be staring at
his own memories and why hasn't *he* bugged *Tim's*
house?

How horribly embarrassing would it be to try to get Bruce's
footage of -- what did Bruce even *think* -- no, focus. He
can focus. "So what -- *exactly* -- did he beg you to not
stop doing, Clark?"

The squeeze this time is less companionable than anxious,
though still perfectly gentle.

"Oh, now you really *have* to tell me."

"Well, Dick, you… it's very obvious that you're important to
him…"

"So important he can't -- yes, okay, but --"

"While he might have been referring to the *act* I was
committing, I suspect that he was really referring to the…
ah. *Idea*. Of you committing it."

"Of -- me. You -- you were using -- *my* voice?"

And *this* time, the squeeze is almost a *command*. "He
became -- *wild* beneath me, almost immediately. He --
writhed on his stomach and clenched around me. He had
already ejaculated, but I could tell -- I *saw* that he
began to harden again, as though I'd flipped a *switch* --"

"For -- he's -- he's *attracted* to me?"

"Oh, I'd say very -- oh. Oh," and Clark seems to blink
himself back to the room. "Oh, you didn't know that? I --
I'd assumed you --"

Dick may also be blinking a lot. "I -- I was thinking… hero
worship. He… he doesn't ever -- he's never… oh my God.
He's shy around me *because* he's attracted -- oh. Man."
He needs his hand on his own face, again.

"Dick, are you… does it bother you terribly that I --"

"You knew what he wanted." Needed? "You -- you always
give us just what --"

"I have to, Dick. I -- if there's ever anything I can *do* --
you're both so very wonderful, so very --"

"It doesn't… bother… me?" Dick drags his hand down from
his eyes.

He's just in time to see Clark's face twist into something
rather non-plussed. "You… don't sound especially
convinced."

"And he was… he was wild. Like I…"

"Yes, he. Like you…"

"And I could -- he wants -- Clark, do you think he's in -- do
you think he loves *me*?"

"Well," Clark says, and the wry is back with a vengeance.
"He is your brother."

"I -- deserve that." He absolutely, completely, totally, utterly
deserves it. "I really. I -- but he… for… me."

"I'd like to think I had *something* to do with it, but --"

Crap. "Oh, you know -- you know what I *mean*, Clark, I
mean, it's always -- you're *you* --"

And when he reaches, Clark's right there to hold onto his
hands, squeeze them, and smile warm and wonderful,
always wonderful, right into Dick's eyes. "Dick, you should
know by now how much… well, I wouldn't do the things I
do with you --"

"And Tim. Because you really have to -- he probably won't
feel confident to just *call* you, you know it took me
*weeks* to work up the nerve, because *you* didn't want
to be *pushy* --"

"I -- you really think I should? I mean, he's very --"

"And I was -- very-er. Trust me. If he doesn't want to -- I --
I'll make sure he knows how to. Oh, God, *Clark*," and the
nice thing about Clark -- one of the many, many nice
things -- is that he's entirely capable of… softening himself
up when one -- just as an example -- feels the need to beat
one's head against him.

"Dick, what is it, and -- don't do that, there's only so much I
can --"

"I'm fine, I'm *fine*," Dick says, and squeezes Clark's
hands. "It's just that I was all set to get the gory and hot
details, maybe tease Tim a little, work my ass off to get him
to tease me *back*, and then sort of… *ease* into the talk
about only doing what he wants to, and thinking about it,
and --"

"And this -- you planned this for *after* sending me to
seduce him? Dick, I'm -- I'm not sure what I am, actually,
I --"

"Clark, just -- shush. You're you. You are *you*, and also
you're a great social lubricant, and just -- trust me on this.
It's not like you'd ever *hurt* him."

Clark drags their hands down to the couch, extricates his
own, and kind of pats -- *at* Dick. "You were, if I need to
remind you, planning to explain to Tim how to *say no to
me*, but somehow this wasn't important *before* I --"

"You keep -- trying to bring in logic, Clark," and Dick takes
the opportunity to climb on Clark's lap and cup his
shoulders. "We're talking about *sex*, here."

"But not logic."

"No. And now -- I can't tease him. He's -- he'll just
*assume* you told me about -- the voice thing --"

"I also told him that you… enjoyed that particular activity."

"I -- do I look green? I feel green. Oh God. Just -- be quiet
a minute while the full weight of my machinations falls on
my head like a ton of red, gold, green, and blue bricks,
please."

Clark strokes his back with those really long, firm strokes
that feel wonderfully soothing and also will never, ever stop
reminding him of those first nights, waking up with horror
behind his eyes and Bruce silent and -- *silent*.

But there for him. Just -- always.

"Does it help at all that he seemed… even more aroused by
the idea?"

"He -- oh he -- oh, I'm not going to be able to look at him
without thinking about -- does he bite when he kisses?"

"I --" Clark stops petting and squeezes his obliques. "Are
you quite sure you want me to tell you that? Or -- anything
else, Dick? I don't -- I would feel terrible if all of this made
it *harder* for you to relate to Tim."

"Are you --"

"I mean, Dick, it's very important to me -- as your friend
and Tim's -- that the two of you get *along*."

"Oh, you're. You're really mean to me. You -- you should
have more pity in your soul. Mercy, and --"

"And, after all, he is attracted to you -- you're attracted to
him, aren't you?"

"*Clark* --"

"Well, you certainly seem -- fascinated by --"

"He's *fourteen*!"

Clark looks at him.

Clark --

Clark isn't going to stop looking at him anytime soon. Dick
bites his lip. "Let's pretend I didn't say that."

"If you're sure," Clark says, and he's all --

"Don't be stern at me, Clark. I'm -- really very fragile, and --
look, I was already obsessing -- obsessed with -- God, what
is he *doing* now?"

"A moment… he's typing. Almost certainly in his bedroom.
He's listening to music -- rather atonal, to my ears -- but
quietly. I would assume homework."

Because he's in school. In -- freshman school. High school.
That. "I need to talk to him."

"Well, that's the interesting thing, Dick -- I absolutely agree
with you."

He's reasonably sure that he looks both sour *and* sulky.

He --

A part of him is never not going to be thirteen with Clark.
Just like how a part of him is always going to be thirteen
with Bruce. The difference being that he's pretty sure Clark
is never going to hold it against him. Too much.

And so, the absolute best course of action is to wrap his
arms around Clark's neck, and kiss him until all the hard
melts into warm and wet, until it freezes back up and stabs
him --

Until Clark is fucking Dick's mouth with his tongue and the
only *possible* thing to do is move against him in another
kiss, a bigger, harder -- *better* kiss, body to body --

Until Clark flies them up into the air so that Dick can get his
*whole* body into it, writhing in the air, if not the sky, and
the best part about being taller is that he can feel *more*
of Clark --

And he can have too-long hair for Clark to pull on --

Until Dick has to tilt his head back and be kissed on the
throat --

"He liked this, too. When I kissed him --" Clark's breath is
hot and *wet* against Dick's Adam's apple, and the kiss is
wetter, "here, he moaned and clutched at me. His
reflexes -- he's usually such a thoughtful, *deliberate*
young man…"

"Yes, oh -- he -- he's so much like Bruce I can't *stand* it --"

"Careful, even, about the jokes he tells -- and when he tells
them," and Clark is licking his throat, and Dick --

He's not sure when he started sweating, but Clark's already
winning the 'taste Dick' game and they've hardly even
started. "Always -- always *studying* --"

"He makes me wonder what it would've been like to know
Bruce at that age, really."

"Someone -- really should've, even though it would've --
might've changed -- Clark, does he *bite* -- *ah* --"

"Yes," Clark says, after letting the flesh over the tendon in
Dick's neck slide out from between his teeth. "And he
responds much the same way as you do when *I* do."

"Tell me -- just don't -- wait," and at times like this it's
always a little too hard to wriggle out of Clark's *grip*, but
it always means the same thing. It's always --

It's always being wanted, being needed right there, just
exactly the way he is.

Clark's still floating up above, but -- not far enough. Dick
grabs him by the hips and *pushes* -- and then grabs the
waistband of Clark's tights and shorts when he starts to
move.

The smile on his face -- he knows which one it is by the way
Clark looks at him, avid and a little red, a little *dark* --

But not as dark as Clark's permanently-attached (and
undoubtedly better-behaved) dick, and, of course, not as
wet-and-ready for him. Dick licks him, licks his own lips and
drags them over the head --

"Dick, oh -- yes, please, this --"

"We didn't last time, somehow, and I'm blaming you
completely -- tell me. Tell me everything. Tell me what you
*wanted*."

"Anything, absolutely --"

"And then come in my mouth," he says and sucks on the
head just as hard as he can --

And uses his teeth when Clark shoves both hands into Dick's
hair and *doesn't* pull.

This… this he could do for hours, and Clark knows it. Clark
can *handle* it, just like he can handle Clark. One hand
around the base and -- yeah, just the head and a little more,
fucking his face on it hard and fast until --

"Both of his hands -- so hard and -- *unsure* -- he
ejaculated before I could take him fully in my own hand --"

Licking him, tasting him -- it's always different even though
it's always the same. His brain just isn't built to make this
kind of *metaphor*, to try to tease out the sense of *sex*
from --

"I wanted -- he kept wanting to do everything, all at once --
distracted and *hungry* --"

-- everything else, yes -- *hungry*, Dick thinks, and kisses
his fist once, again, pulls back enough to just… he wants to
hear, wants to know --

"He welcomed -- oh, every touch. His face, his legs, his
penis -- his red mouth -- he bit his lip, over and over. I could
see him telling himself to stop --"

And oh, he loves this, he loves how Clark's dick just
*pumps* pre-come, shot after shot. He loves getting sticky,
he loves making his own mouth red --

"He *asked* me to ejaculate on him, Dick. He -- oh yes,
moan around me, your mouth -- he'd love your mouth on
him --"

Every time, every *time* Clark had come on him --
especially when it was accidental, when Dick had just been
so *good* --

"Beautiful boy, slender and hard, arching toward my touch --
leaning toward -- I want to watch you touch him. I wanted
to watch you tasting him, holding him --"

He's shaking now, he -- he has to shake. Clark always gives
him just too much, just enough -- he has to know how
much Dick needs him, needs to be taken *over* --

"I -- I forced myself not to imagine penetrating him -- and
then I couldn't. He was on his hands and knees for me, and
my penis was -- nestled and *held* by his cleft --"

Begging for it, and yes -- crying for it, always, because Clark
is so safe, so beautiful and perfect in Dick's mouth. The
pre-come is slicking his chin, his own *saliva* -- he's
drooling for Clark -- holding his hips --

"I held him still -- I wanted -- wanted to hold him down --
please, take me *deeper*, Dick --"

Yes, always -- *yes*, and swallowing him is white-out,
darkness -- red eyes in his mind, no air -- always forgets to
breathe first -- his hands are shaking on Clark's hips, he
needs --

"I -- I painted his lips with my semen, shamelessly -- he
looked -- he looked like he felt so -- dirty --"

Dirty-perfect, *always*, and he's scratching at Clark's hips,
clawing -- he needs *air* --

"When -- oh when -- he couldn't grow erect anymore, Dick,
but I couldn't stop. He -- he *told* me not to -- "

He needs -- he always needs Clark to *come* for him, he
always needs to give him that, *take* that for himself --

"I'm going to -- I couldn't hold him by the hair. The skin of
his scalp is very -- much more sensitive than yours -- oh,
your hair is like water, so sweet --"

Pulled in and Clark wanted to -- *he* wants to. Would Tim
take the pain from him? Would he want it? Would it be --

"I cupped his head instead, as often -- often as I -- oh,
Dick, Dick, so *perfect* --"

And his hands are shaking too much for this, but he has to
let go of one Clark's hips and reach down *anyway*, touch
himself --

"I -- I wanted to masturbate for him --"

Choke and swallow and swallow as much he can, try to --
try to remember the wildness when Wally had him in hand,
the way his eyes showed too much white -- the way it felt
to jerk off in the shower knowing Bruce was at the console
waiting for him --

"I kissed him -- his back -- shoulders -- he was almost
asleep, and moaning softly -- every breath --"

Has to just -- please, Clark, please please --

"And when I called -- your voice -- he screamed when I
called him 'little brother,' Dick --"

And Dick's knees give out, he's falling -- losing it --
coming on his hand and his abdomen --

Clark's there, wrapped around him, holding him, kissing him
over and over -- his dick *pressed* to Dick's stomach --

"No, in my mouth -- I need -- oh, *please*, Clark --"

And Clark *tugs* on a handful of Dick's hair, and makes
Dick -- oh, makes Dick *see* him, just the way Tim did,
know him just like his little brother, his serious-sweet little
brother --

And then there's -- motion too fast and perfect for Dick to
*catch* it, but he knows it, and his mouth is open and ready
for Clark, ready to suck and --

Oh, Clark moving his head, and it can't be the right rhythm
or speed for what Clark *needs*, but maybe it's what he
needs to *see* --

"I can't -- I can't imagine -- I want him, Dick, I want
*this* -- and I want you to ejaculate in his mouth."

And it's pain on top of *pain* to grab his own balls, but he's
had a little too *much* (never) Clark lately, and he really
needs to not be hard this fast. Not *again* --

"I think -- oh, I've always loved you, Dick --"

*Please* --

"Always -- ah -- *ah* --"

And Dick swallows as much and as *fast* as he can, but it's
never enough before he has to pull back, keep his eyes
squeezed shut, and --

"Oh, Dick, you -- so *beautiful* --"

He is never going to get tired of Clark coming on his face, or
of the way the act always makes Clark almost *frantic* with
the need to hold him, lick him, kiss him --

Clark has never so much as left a *bruise* on his skin.

Dick -- understands. Maybe.

He's in Clark's lap and he's sticky and shaking with fatigue,
and Clark's kisses are meant to be soothing. They're just
Clark, and everything -- everything they can do for each
other.

Dick presses his arms against Clark's neck --

Dick squeezes and kisses Clark back.

*

[Yep, some kind of plot thing. Maybe with explosions!]

*

In all honesty and deliberation, it's not a matter of
*whether* Clark will want to speak to him about his…
activities so much as it's a matter of when.

Years before (Jason), it had been only Dick, of course, but
of course that had been -- enough. More than enough.

Clark had done them both the favor of not pretending that
Bruce *hadn't* known about his activities with Dick from
the beginning, but beyond that…

("Bruce, I think that if you'd only try to talk to him, try to
explain *why* --")

At the time, Bruce had thought -- 'known,' with something
transparent retrospect wants him to know had far too much
leeway for his own emotional state -- Clark was both far,
far overstepping the unspoken bounds which had worked
well for them over the years and asking for far too much.

He wasn't, of course.

Despite the fact that Bruce has yet to find a way to *follow*
the advice --

Bruce knows that he has been a terrible coward. He has
left -- he has, for all intents and purposes, left it *to* Clark
to be all the things to Dick that he couldn't be. Everything
he couldn't -- he doesn't --

He doesn't deserve the pleasure he takes from watching
Dick thrive in New York with his team, and he doesn't
deserve the opportunity to take everything Dick has
learned -- Nightwing has learned -- on his own into account
when making his long-term plans. Just the same…

Just the same, it's easier to dwell (Alfred would, perhaps,
use the word 'wallow') on this than it is to pretend patience
while waiting for Clark to decide to talk to him about…

About Tim.

It's not that Bruce is expecting it to be an especially difficult
conversation on his part -- Tim proves himself beyond even
his own impressive original potential with each passing day,
and Bruce has no -- true -- difficulty with allowing the boy
room to make his own choices when it comes to…
relationships.

Which is, of course, not to say that he isn't -- somewhat --
surprised.

It's --

"Batman. Are you -- terribly busy?"

If he were, Clark never would have called. It's the
intersection of courtesy and imposition -- Clark always,
always gives him the opportunity to eschew his company,
and to take the responsibility for that particular lapse in
civility.

"It's only… I would greatly appreciate a few moments --
perhaps half an hour? -- of your time."

There's a measure of satisfaction in Clark's… diffidence. Or
there would be, if Clark wasn't entirely aware of it. The true
satisfaction, of course, is being enough of an intimate to be
allowed the full measure of Clark's quietly habitual
manipulation.

"I could wait, of course," Clark says, and the smile is audible
through the comm, slightly more amused than rueful.

"I'm here," Bruce says, and, because there's no reason not
to, "you're welcome."

The courtesies extend beyond what he offers to the Robins,
to the young men who have shared Bruce's life, and
attempted -- each in their own ways --

("No, seriously, Bruce, just -- that's a *ridiculous* amount
of power. I mean -- damn. Or dang. No, I meant damn.")

-- to share their fascination. Their wonder.

For them, he offers a precise burst of speed, enough to
ripple loose fabrics (to wrap the capes around their legs,
perhaps -- *perhaps* -- to subtly adjust them to the
concept, the idea of being held, caressed) and send bits of
trash (if there are any) skirling away in his wake.

Bruce has made it clear --

("Yes, Bruce, I'm fully aware that any and all theatrical
touches are for *you* to offer, and not me.")

Hm.

When he arrives, he touches down slowly, and his smile is --

Not blinding, but brilliant, just the same.

"Welcome, Bruce?"

If it were simply hope in his voice, as opposed to speculative
amusement, it would be -- easier not to return, at least in
part, Clark's smile. "At the moment."

"Ah, then I… perhaps I should endeavor to make the most
of my time here, with you?"

"Perhaps," Bruce says, and it's easy to forget, from time to
time, how dangerously simple it can be to fall into a certain
rhythm with Clark. He doesn't particularly want -- "Perhaps
you could tell me why you're here."

There's something almost obscene about Clark's surprise at
Bruce's shortness -- about its sincerity.

"There *was* a reason for your visit…?" And, of course,
about his own desire to soften himself.

"I thought we might… we haven't talked about -- we haven't
truly spoken in a while."

The euphemism is clumsy, but not -- the genius of Clark's
manipulation is that quite a bit of it isn't intentional. "Clark,
you seem as though it has only recently occurred to you
that you wish to discuss, with me, the sexual relationships
in which you've been engaged with my partner and former
partner."

"Ah. Well. That does certainly be -- the gist."

"Mm. What -- precisely -- would you care to talk about?"

Clark's expression is briefly sharp, if not exactly angry.
There's a sense -- distinct -- that *Bruce* has pushed too
much.

And a temptation -- based on the problematic desire to hold
on to the generally warm *feel* of Clark's presence -- to
once again step back from his stance, to -- yes, soften.

He has never -- Bruce has never been inappropriate with --

"We could talk about Jason."

"No," he says, more evenly than he had any right to expect,
"we can't."

"It's just that…" Clark turns away, and his laugh is breathy
and faintly old. "I've always *wondered*, Bruce. You -- you
remember --"

"I remember. Clark --"

"It's just that." Clark's shoulders slump -- but only for a
moment.

"Clark, this really isn't --"

"It *is* what I'm here to -- discuss," he says, and looks back
over his shoulder. "Please?"

"You have always been -- you use vulnerability like a
weapon."

"And you make accusations like conversation," Clark says,
and his smile is wholly rueful. Deft. "Please."

"I built the Case to have -- have something." Control, logic
-- reason. None of those would *allow* him to say -- Clark
will always keep his secrets. "I only feel him in my dreams.
You can --"

"Bruce," he says, greatly -- Clark's hand is on his shoulder,
squeezing as though the suit were not there, as though he
could simply reach to -- "I know what I'm asking, even if I
can't -- know what it costs."

"Go ahead."

"I understood. I thought -- I thought I understood. The
freedom you allowed Dick, and how it only ever seemed --
I understood the permission you gave to me -- to both of
us. I've only ever wanted --"

"His happiness."

"Mine, as well. I'm not -- I'm not an altruist, Bruce," and
Clark's breath is overly warm -- not damp enough -- against
Bruce's ear.

"And for me?"

"For you -- I hoped for contentment. I knew -- I think I gave
up on your happiness long before you realized I had."

"Hm. You assumed I had," and it's easier than Bruce
would've expected to brush Clark's hand aside. Perhaps he
has given enough. "You've always seemed so very --
dedicated," Bruce says, and moves to sit down at the
console.

A position of strength -- and another act of cowardice in the
lack of another chair, even though none of his partners
have been reticent in taking this chair for their own when
they felt they needed to do so.

Strength and cowardice alchemized into something almost
like a test, or a bargain with the future: Should it become
necessary, there will be another. As if he'd ever begun
thinking seriously that way before Jason's death.

"You're thinking of him now," Clark says, arm lax at his
sides, chin tilted -- unconscious bravado.

"He was terrified of you, Clark. Though he was not devoid
of admiration."

"I -- noticed --"

"He was always a very logical -- practical -- young man, for
all of his passion."

"Was it logic that led him to you?"

"*I* -- all but kidnapped him. You -- I'm not at all sure how
you would've reacted, had you seen him the way I did."

"Would it have been possible?"

When Dick was -- very much younger, he had taken, briefly,
to sitting on the stone floor at Bruce's feet. He had never
knelt like this.

"Would it have been possible to see him the way you did?
Whenever I saw your eyes, Bruce -- Bruce."

It's just -- he needs a *pause*, or at least its like. The
gauntlet wrapped around Clark's cheek, resting under his
jaw is close enough. "Why *this* position…?"

"I was feeling casual…?"

Dick -- Dick is in the dance of laughter behind Clark's eyes,
the lazily sensual twist of his mouth -- Bruce lets go.

"The way you looked at him -- I never understood how
others couldn't *feel* it even if the cowl hid it from sight. It
was -- maddening."

"The way I -- *you* found it --"

"He was very beautiful, and I felt -- precluded from even
thinking it very deeply. You kept him very -- Dick would
complain, to me, about you cutting weekends with the
Titans short."

"I needed him."

"And you let Batman take the blame," Clark says, and smiles
at the uniform like the costume of a child.

"You would've preferred I explain to Dick that I was sexually
and romantically obsessed --"

"You were in love. You always -- you always will be. Do you
know, I'd convinced myself that no such thing could ever
happen to you. That you were -- immune to all but the sorts
of love which allowed for -- narrow -- friendships and
partnerships saddled with *rules*."

"And *you* never struck me as a 'do as thou wilt' sort of
man, Clark."

"Until I seduced Tim?"

"Hmm." It's not a laugh he particularly wanted to allow, but
it feels as inevitable as Clark's hand on his knee. "I never
doubted that you would find him attractive," Bruce says,
and resists the urge to brush Clark's hand aside.

In this mood, it is all too likely that Clark would simply
*catch* Bruce's hand, for purposes Bruce would rather not
consider.

"I never imagined I would come to know someone lonely
enough to find even my company consistently pleasurable."

"I --"

"Masochism, in Gotham, is far more common," Bruce says,
and smiles *at* Clark.

"You -- the two of you truly have similar senses of humor.
He could be a wonderful companion to you were you to --"

"Allow it? I take too much pleasure from him already. I grow
too --"

"Attached? Bruce, you only -- they care for you so
*deeply*," Clark says, and now he has cupped both of
Bruce's knees.

Yes. Yes, they do. It's a new realization every day, and
every day he is assailed by the emptiness of the manor and
his own knowledge of himself -- of what he can, checked
only by his *emotions*, do to them. For -- "You seem
almost *beseeching*, Kal."

"I --" Clark shakes his head, but he doesn't move away.
"When I first learned that name, I never dreamed I would
know someone who would -- *could* -- use it to
simultaneously rebuke me and --"

"What?"

"Affirm our particular intimacy," Clark says, and there isn't
an iota of doubt or question. "I could wish for a similar…
pet-name."

"Some enjoy 'Brucie.'"

Clark narrows his eyes. "Tim shudders delightfully at the
very thought of him."

"Because *he* -- reminds Tim of too many things he wishes
not to recall about the behavior of his parents before his
mother was murdered. Clark, it's far too tangled. I… you
have to know that one of the reasons I find your
relationships with my partners tolerable -- more than -- is
the fact that it allows them the same freedoms I can enjoy
with you."

"You enjoy me, Bruce? I'm either touched or scandalized."

"Or oversexed. Clark, this isn't --"

"Bruce," Clark says, and slides his hands up enough to
squeeze Bruce's thighs. "You usually allow my overtures
more deniability."

"They're usually more ambiguous," Bruce says, and covers
Clark's hands with his own.

"Dick is going to talk to Tim about his feelings for and about
him. I imagine that, from the outside, it will be incredibly
reminiscent of a French farce with the occasional moment
of crippling social awkwardness -- but they're going to talk."

"Yes?"

"You told me once that there was never a moment with Dick
in which you weren't learning from him at least as much as
he was learning from you. I don't doubt it's the same with
Tim," Clark says, and moves his hands -- slowly -- until his
thumbs are pressing at the armor covering Bruce's inner
thighs.

"Clark."

"I -- I had to *help* Dick see what he had to do. It's -- I
flatter myself to think that it's part of what he finds
desirable about my friendship. And so --"

If Clark wanted to, he could ignore the fact that Bruce is
holding him back by his shoulders. If Clark wanted to, he
could've moved quickly enough to make the point entirely
moot. "Were you looking for variety?"

"I might have simply been feeling confident. Full of --
actualization," he says, and there are times when Bruce
wonders how much influence Dick and Clark have had on
each other. This particular brand of playfulness --

It feels too real, too honest to simply be learned.

"If I mentioned that I knew -- know -- that you're sexually
attracted to me, you'll just tell me something about how
desire is irrelevant, so -- we can skip that part of your
objections, can't we?"

"We could," Bruce says, and pushes until Clark's back down
on his knees. The illusion of safety is -- weak. "However,
my desire to avoid becoming sexually involved with you
*is* relevant."

"You don't listen -- watch? -- me with Dick anymore, do
you?" Clark says, and his eyes are closed.

He's -- Clark is breathing him *in*. The sexuality of an
open, confident male in his prime coupled with inexhaustible
stamina. Robin has -- always -- treasured a challenge. So
has he.

"No, you. You stopped the first time I lost control. When I
couldn't simply allow everything Dick needed and wanted --
when I couldn't simply *pretend* Dick's needs didn't exist,
or were somehow -- irrelevant. Didn't you?"

"I never should've breached his privacy."

"No, you never should. But this -- you know your former
partner. The man he's become. The sexuality he's cultivated
is one in which *privacy* is nearly irrelevant. Especially
when it comes to his family. To you."

"*I* enjoy his privacy."

"He treats the surveillance equipment littering his apartment
as proof of affection -- and for all that humans are constantly
mentioning that they find my more perception-related
powers frightening, they never really do stop trying to find
ways to emulate them --"

"They're --"

"Don't -- Bruce, I've *watched* you watching Dick sleep.
And Tim -- though you really do need the cameras for that,
don't you? He's so very… watchful --"

"And you have your -- Clark, are you trying to distract me
into having sex with you? Clark --"

Clark -- is laughing hard enough that his eyes are wet. It
really wasn't that amusing a comment.

"I -- I'm sorry, I just -- I will never cease being -- enthralled
by all the ways in which you are and aren't like your
partners. Oh, Bruce -- they're so beautiful, and so beautiful
when they let me love them."

"I don't wear this uniform to be beautiful, Clark."

"No, and I'm -- very intimidated. That would certainly
explain the fantasies -- or not. May I kiss you?"

Clark's uniform bunches well in Bruce's fist -- pulls taut --

There is enough time to see that the laughter is gone from
behind Clark's eyes, to be *sure* it's gone --

If not to answer the question of why he needs to be before
kissing him. Kal is positioned like a supplicant, aggressively
pleading with the impossibly firm lines of his throat beneath
Bruce's fingers -- the gauntlet --

"God, *yes*, I've wanted --"

"I *know*," Bruce says, and there's no excuse for this, and
none for pretending that Clark has *worn* at him enough
for this. There has never been --

Clark takes the kiss like drinking, moaning and swallowing
Bruce's saliva and his own, shameless and unafraid --

"What --"

"Please don't stop, Bruce. You -- I don't want to *hear*
about there being no benefit to this, no worthy goal. Your
boys -- your partners --"

"Are not here," and his hands are still on Clark's throat, his
thumbs just beyond the corners of Clark's broad, hard
mouth.

"They've taught me so much, these lovers you share.
These -- oh so beautiful," and Clark stretches up for this
kiss, apparently unwilling to leave his knees even to make
this -- *this* easier for himself, and --

Much too fast, much too -- the gauntlets have been tossed
away and his hands replaced -- perfectly -- on Clark's face.

"They're damp, Bruce -- soft with your sweat -- the smell of
sweat and armor. If you don't kiss me again, I'm going to
feel a great need to suck them."

"Have you begun to seduce with threats?"

"Promises, hopes, my own need, desperation -- anything
and everything they could ever want or need. Anything
*you* -- I'm *hungry*, Bruce --"

And he's been fed, over and over again --

Insatiable and *reckless* --

There is something moaning, lost and desperate within his
own mind when he ducks down to take the kiss this time,
something familiar, breaking through painfully --

So much *pain* --

("God -- you *want* me, Bruce. You want me, and I can't --
it's driving me *crazy*, just -- *please* --")

"Anything," Clark says, and there is no room to hope that it's
a non-sequitur, that he hasn't lost himself so much as --

Bare, he can feel Clark's tears of laughter against his
fingertips, he can move through them, slick and --

The taste --

It's more than taste, of course. It would have to be with
Clark, with the feel of Clark's cheek against the tip of his
tongue, broad and not quite salty *enough* against the
flat --

Bruce hears himself grunt when Clark squeezes his thighs --
when he *yanks*, and perhaps this is a compromise, but
Bruce isn't sure who *for*:

They are on their knees together, kissing and mouthing at
each other like they've been drugged, like --

("Oh -- *fuck*, you -- don't stop *biting*, you know the
tunic'll cover -- oh fuck, oh *fuck* --")

He's missed -- so much. He's gone too long, left himself
without brakes, without control or reason. Clark's hair is
thick, curling with the sweat -- the man can *control* his
own body temperature, his own *metabolism*, but he
chooses not to --

Or perhaps he simply chooses to leave it to chance and
circumstance for moments like this -- an impression of
humanity and an exclamation of desire.

"Clark --" And Bruce stops himself, because Clark's ear -- he
never has to be *loud* for Clark --

"Oh… please, Bruce, yes, I love it --"

He wants Bruce to be loud -- is it painful? Could it be?

How amused will Clark let himself become when he uses his
powers to read -- perhaps from *space* -- the report Bruce
will eventually write?

There's victory, cheap and damning, in surprising Clark
*enough* with the bite to his earlobe that the flesh is utterly
unyielding --

But it's better when Clark pants, moans, and treats his
uniform like an ingenious puzzle. He makes the alarms and
traps of it irrelevant, laughing at the feel of thousands of
volts shooting through him *just* after he moves Bruce
beyond the space of conductivity --

"Just one, yes…?"

And then close again, held and *searched* again, and when
Clark finds Bruce's skin with his fingers he hisses --

His eyes flare, and --

"What did you want?"

"Everything," Clark laughs. "All the time. Every -- every day
I *can* --"

He laughs into the kiss, urging Bruce closer. He licks at
Bruce's teeth until he's bitten, groans and laughs more --
happy --

"Yes -- yes, *yes*, oh -- *finally*," he says, and drags his
cheek over Bruce's own -- moans and jerks when Bruce
scrapes his teeth over his cheekbone.

If he didn't burn his facial hair nearly down to the follicle,
the friction would scrape Bruce's face to the *bone* --

And Clark would be very, very sorry about that. Bruce --

Bruce doesn't want to *laugh*, but, perhaps, it's a better
instinct than the one which is urging him to rip the
ridiculously *thin* fabric of Clark's uniform to shreds.
Laughing at himself --

Makes Clark strip, at speed.

Naked, he doesn't pause before dropping to his knees once
more --

("Yes -- *yeah* -- oh don't you ever stop, I will fucking --
don't *stop*

Before cupping Bruce's face and licking the sweat -- quick
and *hard* -- from beneath Bruce's eyes, and then kissing
him again --

The expression on his face is terrible when Bruce shoves,
desperate and *untrusting* -- never. Kal should never --

"On -- on your *back*," Bruce says, and Clark's eyes flare --
yes, so very much power, banked and controlled *only* now
for the purposes of sex, frivolous and -- *free* --

Broad and golden, perfect beneath Bruce's hands, and --

And Bruce didn't quite know who he was, anymore, the first
time he found himself needing to rip off the cowl, the first
time when the need to *touch* Jason was more important
than anything he could think of, anything he might
desperately *reach* for in the depths of himself --

He doesn't know now, but Clark doesn't touch --

Clark could never touch a stranger, never beg with every
half-clumsy motion of his body for a *stranger* --

"Here," Bruce says, and kisses Clark just beneath his navel,
and licks at the hair surrounding it. "I kissed him here."

"Oh -- *God*, Bruce --"

"And then I couldn't wait. You -- do you want me to wait --"

"Too long --"

("Oh Jesus, we can -- never *mind*, keep *going* -- oh
*shit* --")

The taste of him --

There is not enough salt, not enough of the rich and wrong
and painfully unhealthy foods --

"B-Bruce -- oh, you -- I can't --"

But the feel of him is perfect, twitching with power -- need
and --

I took his hands, Bruce thinks, and reaches, and Clark's grip
is spasmodic, but -- Bruce has lost the ability not to trust
him with this. With himself and, of course, with everyone he
loves --

I looked at him, once, he thinks, and --

("Oh, you want me too *much* --")

And Clark falls back against the stone beneath them, arching
up with his hips and whimpering --

I --

He'd begged with every swipe of his tongue.

He'd pleaded and --

He'd *accused*, even with this, of course with this, and
damned himself for being unable to hear anything beyond
the pound of blood in his ears and the desperation of his
own mind.

He'd closed his eyes and *taken* this, and given in to the
body beneath him, released one of Jason's hands and taken
himself *in* hand --

He'd given himself to the passion which called him, owned
him -- needed --

The *need* --

And the feel of its echo in his own fist, and the flash and
scream of images and sounds. The smiles, laughter, grace,
the power and familiar darkness --

The precision and the irony -- no, not then. Now --

The doubling and trebling --

The knowledge that this could kill him, was already killing
him --

And he hadn't been able to touch himself anymore, and he'd
kept his eyes closed to avoid watching himself stroking and
petting at those powerful thighs with slick, dirty hands even
as he sucked brutally hard, as hard as he'd wanted, and --

Finally, Jason's screams were loud enough to hear against
everything else, they drowned everything, made
everything --

"Bruce, I -- I have -- I love you, Bruce, I've always -- damn
you, I --"

-- irrelevant.

"Please --"

("-- don't *stop* --")

"Your -- your teeth --"

What does it mean to follow orders you've longed for? To be
pleaded for something you long to --

The *feel* of him --

The feel of Clark, skin with no scars even nominally Bruce's
own, body with a solidity which had nothing to do with
permanence -- Clark's faith isn't written on his body, and his
touch is always -- *must* always be -- too controlled to be
entirely trusted --

Except that trust, too, seems irrelevant when Clark works his
shaking hands free and begins to touch Bruce's face. The
trembling pressure on his eyelids, his cheeks and his
stretched and working mouth… Clark is trying not to *hurt*
him, but it's impossible to avoid the desire, to avoid feeling
and *knowing* it.

The sounds he makes now are choked, disbelieving things,
losing coherency seemingly with each time Bruce can't help
but allow himself to groan wetly and clutch at him --

The curve of his hips feels unstable, like the rocking of some
great ship on the waves -- salt. More of it, more of a
*sense* of it --

"Bruce -- oh Bruce, I --"

*More*.

It hadn't been too much, then. It had barely been *enough*
to let him do what he wanted, to let him open his mouth
and spill Jason back onto himself to be licked at again,
lapped up and devoured --

Jason hadn't shaken like this. He had --

He had still been almost *keening*, still and lax with
exhaustion, loose and easy to move, hold -- if only for just
a few moments --

Never *enough* --

("Oh… I'm not -- I'm really not -- fuck, Bruce --")

"Let me," and Clark is gazing -- begging -- directly into
Bruce's eyes, and his hands are moving over Bruce's body
too quickly to be sure of.

"Are you memorizing me, Kal…?"

"We know that memory is enhanced through -- multiple
avenues of perception. May I taste you?"

It's so strange to look at him, to be with him like this. To
feel himself naked and -- 'known' isn't quite what this is.

Clark has never had Jason's *confidence* --

It's stranger, still, to find touch easier than speech, and the
fact that Bruce knows that he'll learn nothing by tracing
Clark's mouth with his fingers --

He can smell himself on them. He can --

He can *see* himself on Clark's lips, and he can see Clark
letting himself drift on a memory -- which?

Was it both of them who did this for him? Did they paint
him --

Has he taught them to struggle for any marks they can
leave…?

"Bruce," and Clark smiles and closes his eyes. "If you let me,
I -- I promise to talk about it only with *them*."

"Liar. You --" He doesn't remember the decision to grab
Clark by the hair, to pull uselessly -- wonderfully -- against
his invulnerable *scalp*. "You will never be able to control
yourself that well," Bruce says, and begins to push,
instead.

"You -- oh, you're probably right," Clark says, consciously
breathy against the head of Bruce's penis. "I should
probably just," he says, and the tip of his tongue *flutters*
against the head --

"Clark --"

"I should probably admit it," and he's kissing Bruce now,
over and --

Over, and --

"To myself if no one --"

He was almost certainly about to say 'else,' which is -- if
there's reason in this --

There's no reason in this, to this. Not for the feel of Clark's
scalp against his fingertips, and not for the feel of Clark's
*mouth*.

There are no cameras which will get an entirely
unobstructed view of this, and, whether or not Clark had
engineered it, it's something for which Bruce is grateful. He
doesn't need to --

He doesn't want to see himself like this, and he doesn't
want --

There aren't -- he doesn't have words for the sight of Clark's
head *moving* on him, and perhaps --

Perhaps this is why he can't avoid the *feeling*. Warmth,
embracing --

Heat and the illusory pain of suction -- the sense of
himself -- no.

For this, and in this way, Clark is devouring him, breaking
through the armor he'd long since covered over -- Bruce has
left himself *vulnerable* and Clark is taking advantage.

Like this --

Clark is greedy and thoughtless, thoughtlessly greedy,
willfully slaved to his own passions because --

Bruce doesn't *know* why, and he doesn't think he ever --

Robin had tried to teach him so *much* --

Robin has always wanted to be *felt*, had wanted Bruce to
understand and possibly even worship the anxious energy
of this, the selfishness of desire and --

The feel:

Himself as something too small for the body he's in, forced
to coil in and *in* on himself --

Bend himself over Clark's head --

Claw at his scalp and his back and *fight* --

And understand why that makes Clark shudder and groan,
slurp wetly and reach to pleasure himself -- this is not
enough for him --

No.

This is -- this is, perhaps, some variety of perfection for
Clark with every small brutality it forces out of Bruce. The
way he's *shoving* Clark down, as if he'd think to resist --

(Jason's soft, proud smile when he rose again --)

The way he's grunting, animalistic and lost --

(Dick's almost grasping frustration and naked *hunger* --)

It's too much, the way it always had to be too *much* --

(Tim's eyes, naked with emotion with no *outlet* --)

All of it too *much*, except for the evidence, raw and
uncompromising, that it's nothing of the kind.

Clark.

Clark, and the fact that the only thing Clark wants from him
is this, that the best thing Bruce can give him is everything.
Every thrust, every grasp that would be bruising on nearly
any other flesh --

How could he --

How had he ever --

He's shaking now, and he can't --

He can't allow himself the luxury of pretending he's doing
anything more than stroking Clark now -- Kal --

His hair and his skin --

His constant redefinition of *grace*.

He's too lost now to do more than gasp when Clark opens
his eyes and looks into him. Clark's eyes are reddened and
wide, hungry and hoping --

"Yes," Bruce says, "*yes*," and it feels almost criminal that
it makes Clark shake, that the two of them can *be* this,
together and --

Lost together.

It's been so long since he's let himself want anything of the
kind -- to want this and only this acceptance in another's
eyes -- "Kal," he says, and it could never be a warning, not
for someone capable of reaching, of *holding* Bruce in the
moment before he would've fallen, lost --

Clark -- is always there.

The sensation of this makes pleasure seem an impossibly
small and incorrect --

There is --

He gasps, again --

And, by the time he can reasonably begin expecting himself
to think properly once more, Clark is on and over him, and
nuzzling his chest.

Bruce pats his back.

Clark --

Clark laughs, and kisses the skin above Bruce's sternum,
and looks up, and smiles.

"Is the triumphant expression really necessary," Bruce says,
and doesn't bother to stop himself from sliding two fingers
over Clark's cheek.

"I think we should agree to disagree over the definition of
'necessary,' Bruce."

Hmm. "You don't enjoy our conversations anymore? I'm
hurt."

"Yes, I --" Clark kisses his fingers. "I've gotten what I
wanted from you. In a moment, I'll find a locker room to
brag in. Perhaps I'll just wait until there's someone in your
capacious showers."

"Of course you will. Try to wait until after I've left."

"I --" Clark's blush is… thorough. "I didn't actually -- I."

"Clark."

"Right, of course," Clark says, and flies up to his feet, and
offers Bruce one broad, sweaty hand.

Bruce takes it.

"Call me sometime…?"

Bruce raises an eyebrow. "And deny you the opportunity to
subtly upbraid me for my lack of social graces?"

Clark looks dangerously close to finding some way to make
Bruce *stop* wishing he were fully dressed.

"Perhaps I'll simply monitor your activities until an
opportunity arises to interrupt you," Bruce says, and crosses
his arms over his chest.

"Mm. Oh, that would be… please do," Clark says, and
dresses himself at speed.

The terrible thing is that Bruce is quite sure that he really
would enjoy it far more than not. Perhaps he'll have to put
some thought into the *quality* of any -- hypothetical, of
course -- future interruptions.

"I assume you'll keep thinking about my suggestions with
regards to how you relate with --"

"I will."

Clark smiles. On anyone else, that small a degree of sadness
would not be quite so *palpable*. "Batman."

"Superman," Bruce says, and nods.

He doesn't need to watch Clark leave in order to feel it. He
brings --

He brings a quality of warmth with him, wherever he goes.

end.

*

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