bruce and clark break up when bruce's batmanning takes over his life entirely. clark is just a normal guy-- a reporter, the foster dad to his little cousin kara. he doesn't understand that bruce needs to save others or he himself does not deserve to live. or maybe he does, and wants to be enough for bruce to want to wake up every morning.
clark leaves, crying hard and unconsolably. he begs bruce to put the bat cowl down. to consider leaving bruised ribcages and scarred backsides behind him. they could start a family, if they wanted. them and kara, and krypto. bruce doesn't understand why it isn't enough, what he does for them. clark says something like phantoms can't be fathers. he can't have one foot in the grave, clark screams. he can't be searching for the next knife to be stabbed into his chest, clark's not yelling anymore. you have to want this, us. clark finishes, still crying, half away out of the door now, with a bag full of his and kara's things.
bruce wanted. of course he wanted. but he could not have.
so clark leaves. bruce doesn't chase.
after, bruce finds pieces of clark everywhere. his socks, cheap and frayed wedged between his thousand dollar couch cushions. white hairs from clark's little cousin's dog's weekend stays on his nice duvet covers-- bruce hates dogs, but he loves clark, kara too. polaroids of clark in his glasses, skewed on his face after sex, in the folds of his leather wallet. "stay still." bruce remembers mumbling. i want you forever, he doesn't say.
he trips kara's game console charger, which he and clark asked her multiple time not to leave in the hallway, for this exact reason. he finds the kents' preferred sweet corn cereal-- yes sweet corn cereal, they're helplessly midwestern-- in his pantry, going stale. years of their lives as a family, bombard bruce in his big, cold, lonely manor.
he's one memento away from burning his house down. he's considering it, flicking a lighter off in on in his office, with the curtains fanned out in front of the floor to ceiling windows to stop the light. (he hasn't left the house in days. alfred leaves his meals outside his door like he's a prisoner. maybe he is.)
when kara shows up on his doorstep in the rain. she's barely 10, and soaked, and he can tell by the taxi that zooms off, splashing gutter water all over alfred's azaeleas, that clark does not know she's here. bruce has known this little girl since she was three, maybe four, has seen her grow into warm spitfire. she's everything to him. and clark, surely, thinks she's missing.
"you have to get back together," she demands. she leaves no room for argument. she pushes past him, shrugs her little trench coat off and hands it to alfred, his normally impenetrable face, smiling.
bruce's world is spinning. there's a child at his house. his ex-boyfriend's stray puppy. his kara who he hadn't seen in at least a month. "kara, darling, how did you get here?"
kara pulls out the credit card he gave her for emergencies. her lip is wobbling, though she does not cry-- bruce's daughter, through and through. the thought makes something seize up in bruce's chest. "you've got to get back together with clark," she clarifies, as if bruce didn't know who bruce was supposed to be courting, and wipes a wet curling strand of hair away from her eyes.
bruce balks, takes in kara's two braids, the pale yellow of her hair plaited neatly. it's diana that taught her how to do so-- bruce's best friend. bruce thinks he could throw up. "don't worry your mind about that, darling. how about some hot chocolate?"
"already on the stove, master bruce," alfred chimes in, winking at kara.
"clark said that you love us very much, but that you have a hard time letting us love you," kara eventually whispers, after clark has been called and dinosaur pajamas have been chosen and the hot chocolate topped with whip cream. they're tucked into the thousand dollar couch, which is only comfortable with her or clark's presence and her face is mashed into bruce's arm so the vowels are muffled by bruce's cashmere sweater. "why?" she asks, "did we not do a good job?"
she is crying now, and bruce has regretted everything that has led him to this moment.
"oh no, oh no, you did the best job," bruce insists, and he's serious. he couldn't name two other people who could love him so unconditionally.
"the best job, my darling. it's my fault," he continues, collecting kara in his arms like he did when she was little and liked to be cuddled to sleep.
clark shows up, not even three hours later, to find kara under bruce's arm, in fleece pajamas, sitting by the fire, fidgeting with a game console. (bruce did call him, eventually, after alfred ran kara a warm bath and they ate dinner and kara told bruce that she got her grade up in math and that her and jimmy olsen are fighting because he said girls can't join the boy's soccer team.)
bruce can see it in clark's face; as the knowledge from all the parenting books they've read together flashes on and off. don't escalate. stern voice, not raised voice. because bruce loves clark and loves kara, he can see it all.
"kara kent." clark's rain jacket is soaking wet and the hood sticking to his cheeks, and his voice is shaking with anger.
kara stands up, slowly. "hi clark."
"go to your room." he snaps.
kara's gaze catches on bruce, who shrugs, uselessly.
"now." clark points upstairs.
and kara scurries to the guest room that was decorated with indie rock posters and had a dog bed tucked at the end of a four poster bed, with large bookcases stuffed with chapterbooks.
it wasn't the fucking guest room.
"did you tell her to come here?" clark accuses, when kara has rounded the stairs. his glasses are speckled with rain drops. bruce loves him. loves him so much.
bruce shakes his head, takes clark's glasses off and wipes them clean. "you know i didn't do that."
he returns bulky wire rimmed things and because clark is honey turned human he has the audacity to mumble a small thank you.
it's true, though, of course he didn't call kara. he was afraid of breaking her somehow. he could barely even suggest she try new foods before breaking at the furrow of her little blond eyebrows and asking alfred for pancakes for dinner. he would never use her against clark in this way. not when it would break everyone involved's hearts.
clark slumps against the doorframe. "i looked for her for twenty minutes before i came here. the after school program, they said she didn't show up, i got... i got so scared."
bruce doesn't hesitate to hold clark as he sobbed. he also considers putting a tracker in a necklace and giving it to kara for her eleventh birthday, if he's even allowed to see her again after this. his mind dallies, kara likes silver jewelry, but only because bruce likes silver jewelery... he's trying to remember the family jeweler's number and where he put his microchips when he remembers he's in a conversation, an important one.
"she's safe here." bruce says, finally.
clark nods, limp in bruce's arms. "i know that. it's when i don't know where she is that scares me."
bruce looks at clark, clark looks at bruce, and then they're kissing. tongue against tongue, slick and wet from cold rain, fingers in hair tugging kinda kissing. it's bruce who pulls away first, he doesn't know if he should apologize or ask clark to marry him.
he does both. "i'm sorry, marry me?"
clark sputters, his tan dimpled cheeks are apple red. "we're broken up." he protests. "i broke up with you." clark continues, as if he's trying to remind himself of the memory, and why it was a good idea.
bruce shakes his head, he is not letting this go. he refuses. "you're not allowed to break up with me, because i just asked you to marry me. marry me?"
and i've already blueprinted our child a tracking necklace, goes unsaid.
clark pushes his glasses up into the frazzled curls, it looks like he's wearing a headband. bruce kisses him again. clark lets him. bruce pulls away again, "i can't... i can't not be the bat, clark. i need you to know that. if kara's gonna trick or treat here or graduate from gotham high or, any of it really, i need gotham to be safe. but i want this. i want us."
"i want weekends." clark says back, breathlessly, "with you. not batman or bruce wayne, CEO, you, bruce, husband and dad. i want you to take kara and krypto to the park, without me asking. family dinners at least three times a week. i want you to be kara's emergency contact and to actually show up if-heaven forbid-there is an emergency... and kara gets your last name too. i don't.. i don't want the kids at school to bully her."
bruce nuzzles his head in between clark's chest, the flannel is warm and dry and smells like cinnamon soap under clark's carhartt workmen's jacket, it doesn't escape bruce that he's the one who bought this for him, "done. all of it. done. marry me?"
clark's crying again, he does this, cry, a lot. it's one of the things bruce loves about him.
"yeah, yeah doofus, i'll marry you." his voice breaks.
they both laugh when they hear kara's little socked feet run and crash into their sides, her arms winding around their waists.
"no running in the house." it slips out of bruce's mouth before he can help it. in the seven years of knowing one another, bruce can count on one hand how many times he's told her no.
kara, however, has never looked happier to be scolded.
