I ??? woke up at 3am with this scene fully written in my mind palace and quickly jotted it down in the Notes app
Clarkâs shaking his head before he realizes heâs doing it, and feels a twinge of embarrassment at his own bad manners when Bruce stops mid-word to look at him, brows raised.
âNo,â Clark says, again without thinking, and again with the reflexive urge to apologize. Somewhere his mother is tutting without knowing why. But he doesnât apologize, because heâs already saying, âNo, it canâtâit canât be that.â
âOkay,â Bruce says slowly. âCan you elaborate?â
He is, honestly, having trouble taking his eyes off the screen. The mockup design of his new suit is there, dark and sleek, ridged like tactical gear. The blue is like the last shade of evening before you canât call it evening anymore, the color of nine PM in Kansas in July, so exact thereâs a strong chance Bruce color-picked it from a photo. The yellow accents are the cool fluorescent yellow-green of lightning bugs. The red is dark as arterial blood. Every aspect of the suit has been updatedâthe colors deeper, the angles sharper, the S extending to the corners of its frameâbut Bruce has done it without changing the fundamentals. Itâs immediately recognizable as the Superman suit, just⌠well, a little cooler, maybe. A little more of the times. Even the tailoring is modernized. The neckline. The shape of the boots. Where the belt hits at the waist. Clark can tell just by looking that Bruce has not only spent a lot of time on this in general, heâs spent a lot of time designing it specifically with Clark in mind, Clarkâs needs and preferences and the small discomforts of his current suit, things he might have mentioned offhand after a mission but never with the assumption that Bruce was listening or filing it away. No doubt the next slides of this presentation will detail all the hidden features of the new suit, and theyâll all be incredibly thoughtful if not slightly overkill, and Bruce will pretend his sole motive here was practicality and risk reduction and respond to any thanks with a curt nod.
And Clark wants to thank him. He will. Itâs just.
âIt canât be⌠cool,â he says, inane. Bruce is watching him with that steady look that used to feel clinical, piercing, and now mostly reads as attentive. âIt canât beâlike yours. Tactical, military-grade.â
âLightyears beyond, actually.â
âIt has toâMa said once, a kid should be able to draw it with crayons. You know? I canât look like a weapon. I have toâI want to look like a friend.â
He can feel himself flushing. Itâs rare that he speaks like this, and rarer still that he does so while being stared at intently. Bruce may think of himself as the darkness, but his gaze is a spotlight: unwavering and revealing and more a little sweat-inducing, for one reason or another.
âSometimes, when I show up, people laugh,â Clark says. âIf itâs somewhere out of the way, where they havenât seen me before. I show up and I look like a festival performer. Itâll be the worst day of their lives, and theyâve got no reason to trust my face, but when they see what Iâm wearingâit goes from âWho are you?â to âWho is this guy?â And thatâs a good thing.â
âHard to be afraid of a man dressed in primary colors,â Bruce says, almost to himself.
âI see. Thank you,â he says, âfor explaining.â
Clark tries not to show how surprised he is to hear that. Judging by the crook of Bruceâs mouth, his success is negligible. âOf course. Sorry I didnâtâI mean, thank you, obviously, for going to such trouble. I didnât mean to come in here andâI really do appreciate it, I can tell you put a lot of work inââ
Bruceâs eyes cut away. âNo. No need. I didnât ask, before IâŚ. It was only a first draft. If youâre amenable, Iâll incorporate your feedback into the second one.â
âOh! Yeah. Yes, of course, but you really donât have toââ
âIf you have any further notes, I would like to hear them.â
Thereâs something determined in the lines of his face. Clark has the sense that this moment is important, that itâs a turning point, even if heâs not sure why. It feels like striking out into a sea of ice, a blank white expanse under which something precious and vital is hidden, has been hidden all along, just waiting for him to find it. To want to.
âSure,â he says. He looks back at the suit and swallows, and knows Bruce will see the flicker of his throat and take some meaning from it, and wishes he knew what the meaning was. Or maybe Bruce wonât notice or read into it at all. Maybe Clark needs to calm down, in fact. âUm. I donât want to assume, but does it⌠do things?â
âIt does things,â Bruce confirms, after the barest pause. âLet me show you the next slide.â
discoholicmusic
titsay
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
