Work Text:
Out of all the sights Clark had encountered in his life so far, beautiful or traumatizing or both: none of it had prepared him for the uniquely discombobulating experience of Bruce Wayne inside a Home Depot.
“I need caulk.” Bruce declared, speed-walking through the aisle.
Clark smiled nervously at the numerous heads that turned in their direction. He had been tasked with operating the cart, which was starting to get a little too full to operate. “Can you walk a little slower?” He asked, on the cusp of pleading.
“No time,” came Bruce’s vague reply, and he left Clark behind to catch up. It was a Saturday afternoon and the store was relatively busy, yet no one seemed to recognize Bruce in a baseball hat. If anything they were probably more distracted by the fact that he was wearing fancy shoes.
Despite hiring a construction crew for the vast majority of the Manor’s restoration efforts, Bruce had insisted on doing the final interior work himself. For security, he told them, except it was probably because he hated not having a say in how things were done, right down to the tiny details. Clark volunteered to help with all the heavy lifting, of course. He and Bruce were friends now, even if things felt a little weird on Clark’s side. Weird meaning that he sometimes felt stuck between the urge to not be his friend at all, and also not be his friend. Whatever on earth that even meant.
Once they’d loaded up Martha Kent’s borrowed pickup truck with everything, they headed to the Manor, arriving back to Barry and Arthur playing Scrabble on the unfinished floor of the lounge.
“Oh, hey guys,” Barry greeted. Clark peeked at the board and saw him trying to play the word ‘bruh’. “Did you go shopping?”
Bruce set down the gallon of premixed concrete with a loud thud. The word tiles rattled on the board. “I thought I told you guys this area was off-limits.”
“Well, Barry’s place is way too creepy with all the screens and stuff,” Arthur told him, ignoring Barry’s scowl. “And Alfred kicked us out of the cave. For unknown reasons.”
“Perhaps you could try going somewhere other than my house.” Bruce said. Much to Clark’s relief, he was taking off the fancy shoes and putting on work boots.
“It’s not his fault he lives with his dad, and that scrabble is not fun underwat—“
Arthur covered Barry’s mouth with his hand. “Why is Clark allowed in the cave when you’re not home, but we aren’t? Sounds like favouritism.”
Bruce didn’t dignify that with an answer. He pulled on a pair of gloves and looked over his shoulder at Clark. “I’m going to start in the meeting room. Bring the rest of the stuff with you,” he said and left Clark with 500 square feet of laminate flooring to haul over.
Arthur turned to Clark and grinned. “You’re whipped, man. And you guys aren’t even a thing yet.”
Clark tried not to look too embarrassed. “I’m trying to help. He can’t do everything alone.”
“I offered to help, but he told me he’d rather not die in a horrible accident of cartoonish proportions,” Barry said, mournful. “I’m not even that clumsy.”
Clark hefted two boxes of flooring onto his shoulder with a sigh and exited through the door Bruce had, leaving behind the sounds of Barry and Arthur arguing. Bruce had already started putting down a row of flooring.
“So, uh, what do you need me for?” Clark asked.
Bruce looked up at him with a pair of goggles perched on his nose. Clark stifled a laugh. “You can pass me stuff. And maybe cut some of the flooring for me.”
That made it sound like he was doing Clark a favour by letting him help. “Alright,” Clark conceded, and it went on like that for a bit. Clark tried to talk to him at first, tell him stories about the construction sites he’d worked on, once upon a time. Bruce listened, as he always did, with relative interest. Clark half-expected him to offer a story of his own, but Bruce was Bruce after all. Sooner or later, they lapsed into a comfortable silence. Clark had sunken into the routine of it; the peaceful repetition and the sound of Bruce’s breathing and mumbled measurements under his breath.
Every once in a while their fingers would touch when he handed Bruce something, and Bruce’s pulse would stutter, hasten by a fraction of a second. Clark watched him as he worked— the musculature of his shoulders underneath his shirt, his hair that fell over the frames of the goggles, the sweat that beaded on the back of his neck. Clark’s own want baffled him, like he hadn’t realized the severity of it until he was right there in the moment— close enough to touch.
After they finished up the meeting room, Clark proposed they take a break. They made some coffee in the partially constructed kitchen— yes, Bruce had already installed a machine in there— and then headed outside for some fresh air. Bruce looked tired. His face was sweaty and the goggles were stuck in his hair like a pair of sunglasses— but he also looked a little relaxed, like he was pleased to get some work done.
Bruce was looking at the exterior of the building, running his hand over the concrete. He turned to Clark, and finally said something longer than a one-word sentence. “There used to be a huge tree next to this side of the manor.”
Clark blinked. This was the first time in a while that Bruce had alluded to his childhood. “What kind?”
“Oak.” Bruce said. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “When I— when I was a kid, in the springtime there would be swarms of these caterpillars that would make nests on the tree. Sometimes they would migrate to the outside of the building. One day our gardener got tired of them and wanted to spray the outside of the building with pesticide. Before he could do that, I got a shoebox and filled it up with as many caterpillars as I could save and brought them inside.”
Clark grinned; he couldn’t help it. “And Alfred wasn’t very happy, I suppose.”
“Furious.” Bruce’s eyes were almost golden in the sun. “Luckily none of them got inside the house. We took the caterpillars over to the forest and set them loose over there, and then I got ice cream.”
“That’s some sort of punishment.”
Bruce’s gaze fell to the grass. “I guess he realized at that point that I was doing it because I was lonely.”
Clark leaned against the brickwork and didn’t say anything. It felt more appropriate to just listen. Bruce was quiet for a minute, and then spoke up again.
“Diana asked me the other day if I’d ever considered getting a pet of some sort.” He looked up at Clark. “Because it must get lonely in the cave.”
“What did you tell her?” Clark asked. Their shoulders were nearly touching.
“I told her that was ridiculous, because I have Alfred.”
Clark gestured upwards. “And those two idiots up there to play scrabble with you.”
“Yeah,” Bruce said, mouth curled up in a soft smile, and then he leaned over, by an inch, to bump their shoulders together. “And you too.”
Clark hesitated for a second. In spite of all his unsubtle lusting after Bruce, this is what he really wanted; an easy closeness between them like it was an afterthought.
“Yeah,” he agreed, breaking out into a grin. “And me too.”
Bruce didn’t say anything else, and instead seemed content enough to stay there, just barely pressed against Clark’s side. Clark stared out into the distance, in the direction of the fields and highway leading into the property. This area had been so empty for the longest time, left to rot, and now it was going to be whole again.
Clark turned to Bruce to tell him that, but before he knew it Bruce’s hand was on the back of his neck and he was kissing him, too careful and too softly for it to be spontaneous. Clark pulled Bruce closer by his free wrist and kissed back, poured every bit of feeling into it, all his doubt and apprehension and for some crazy reason, willingness to follow Bruce around like a dog in a hardware store.
The kiss was broken by his sudden uncontrollable laughter. Bruce pulled back with a raised eyebrow. “What is it?”
“Arthur called me whipped earlier.” Clark said through choked breaths. It took another minute for him to stop giggling like an idiot, and by then the look on Bruce’s face was nothing short of delighted.
He kissed Clark again, stroking the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “Are you?”
Clark felt his whole body flush, if that was even scientifically possible. Who knew with him. “Maybe just a little,” he admitted, and watched a mirroring flush spread across Bruce’s face.
“This is really cute, you guys!”
Both of them froze in unison and looked up. Barry had his head poking out of the window. “Goddamn it,” Bruce said through his teeth.
Arthur joined him, snickering. “You’re whipped too, bro.” He pointed at Bruce.
Bruce threw the goggles at his head.