Chapter Text
Bruce hates this kind of rain.
The slow, needling kind that eats through glass and grout and thought. It’s the city bleeding itself clean, if such a thing were possible. He stands at the window of Wayne Tower, watching it happen, soaked through in sympathy. The skyline’s a smear of bruised neon and cloud rot. His reflection sits pale over it, barely human.
Honestly, the office is too big. Always has been. He never turned on half the lights after his father died; he tells himself it’s an efficiency thing, but it’s not.
The dark makes it easier to think. The dark doesn’t judge him for what he hasn’t done yet.
Bruce hasn’t eaten since dawn. He hasn’t really slept in days. He can’t remember which. Everything blurs together lately—nights bleeding into mornings, mornings bleeding into reports, footage, names. Criminals, victims, the endless exchange rate of Gotham’s soul. He drinks what’s left of his coffee and feels nothing. It’s gone cold, like the rest of him.
He turns away from the window and looks at the desk. Piles of case files, donation letters, police reports, all half-read and damp at the corners from the humidity that creeps in no matter how high above the street he goes.
Bruce leans back against the desk, the wood cold under his hands, and stares at the city as if it owes him an explanation. What’s the point of it? he thinks. All this fighting, all this saving, all this endless bleeding. The rot never lessens.
The faces change; the wounds don’t.
At least there’s one thing Bruce has to look forward to. Or tolerate, more like.
There’s supposed to be an interview. Alfred said six o’clock.
“A light piece, sir,” he’d insisted. “A reporter from Metropolis. Something about the Foundation’s outreach. A chance to remind Gotham you’re not entirely made of shadow.”
Bruce had said he didn’t care what Gotham thought.
Alfred hadn’t believed it.
He still doesn’t know why he said yes. Maybe it was easier than saying no again. Maybe part of him wanted to see if there’s still a human shape left under the ruin.
He imagines the reporter already: bright, clean, polished type of man. Loose handshake. Fake smile. The kind of person who says ‘hope’ and doesn’t mean it. He’ll ask about childhood, family, “the legacy of the Waynes.” Bruce will answer in monosyllables until it’s over. Then the man will leave, and the room will go quiet again, and he’ll go back to hunting the dark.
A flash of lightning fingers its way across the windowpane. Thunder follows, close enough that it rattles a pen on the desk. Bruce doesn’t flinch. He feels the vibration echo in his chest like an old friend.
He presses his thumb to the bruise on his knuckle, the one that never quite fades. Pain, the old currency. Proof of something.
You’re not done yet, he tells himself. He doesn’t believe it, but he says it anyway.
The clock slowly drips toward six . . .
And that’s when the elevator opens with a hydraulic sigh.
He looks up, startled. No one should be here yet. The reporter must be ten minutes early, at least. Bruce hadn’t even bothered to put his suit jacket back on. Papers are still scattered, half a cup of coffee congealed in the corner, one of his files open like a wound. He thinks Alfred could have warned him.
Then a man steps out.
A tall and muscular and completely rain-soaked man, Bruce quickly deduces. The damp tie around his throat is crooked, with one side of his collar having surrendered to gravity. His suit is an honest one, cheap but pressed, and there’s something disarmingly human about that. Every detail of him looks like an effort that almost worked.
And the glasses . . . Bruce’s gaze catches on those.
They’re slightly fogged from the rain, lenses glinting when the lightning outside flares. The journalist lifts a hand and pushes them up his nose with the back of a knuckle.
He’s smiling too. Not the empty PR grin Bruce expects from journalists, but something passionate, earnest, unselfconscious. It’s the kind of smile that Gotham hasn’t gotten to kill yet.
“Mr. Wayne!” The man’s voice is steady, warm and grounded, the faintest trace of Kansas earth clinging to its vowels. He steps forward, holding out a hand that looks like it could crack stone. “Sorry about the rush. Traffic was a nightmare, and . . . I, uh . . . ran the last few blocks. I’m a big fan of your work. Clark Kent, by the way.”
Bruce glances at the offered hand and doesn’t take it.
He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t like handshakes. It’s a performance he’s outgrown. The press of flesh, the quick mutual squeeze meant to prove something. Dominance, familiarity, civility. All the little illusions people build around touch.
The truth is simpler.
He doesn’t know how to be touched.
So Bruce just looks at it—that palm, open and waiting—and says, “You’re early.”
Clark lets his arm fall, still smiling. “Bad habit. My editor calls it punctuality anxiety.” He gives an awkward half-shrug. “Besides, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and beat the rain.”
Bruce wants to say, how did that work out for you? or it's impossible to beat Gotham at anything. He watches Clark instead, studying the dimples punctuating his cheeks, the way his wet shirt collar has wilted.
The silence stretches. Bruce forces himself to fill it.
“Of course. Have a seat, Mr. Kent.”
The words come out gruff, gravel pushed through the filter of his teeth. The journalist doesn’t seem the least bit phased.
“Thank you,” Clark says, still offering that same patient smile. It’s not pitying or performative. Just patient, as if he’s giving Bruce time to catch up.
The reporter moves to the chair opposite the desk. Every gesture is soaked in harmless politeness; shaking rain from his sleeves, setting his notebook down carefully, running a hand through his hair to push it back. Bruce can smell the rain on him now. Petrichor, wet wool, something like soap. Not the harsh antiseptic kind people in Gotham use to wash the city off their skin, but something simpler. Clean.
Clark flips open his notebook and finds his pen. “So, this won’t take long,” he declares. “I know you’ve got a full schedule.”
A snort bubbles in the pit of Bruce’s throat. He swallows it down.
A full schedule.
If only he knew.
“Go ahead,” he says instead, taking a seat across from Clark.
Bruce is aware of how he must look: tired, half-feral, a man sculpted by insomnia and fluorescent light. He wonders, briefly, what the article will say. The Reclusive Heir: Gotham’s Living Ghost.
Probably something like that.
“I’ll keep this short,” Clark says warmly. “I’m mostly interested in the humanitarian side of your work. The Wayne Foundation’s outreach programs, that sort of thing.”
Bruce stares at him. He can hear the rain against the windows, the hum of the building. Gotham sounds like a machine running on fumes. “And?”
Clark’s pen hovers midair, the smile faltering a little. “Right. I guess I’ll just start with the easy one.” He looks down at his notes. “How does it feel to be leading the next generation of Wayne Enterprises’ philanthropic vision?”
Bruce almost scoffs. Philanthropic vision. He can practically hear Alfred saying it in some grand spiel.
“It doesn’t feel like anything,” Bruce answers dryly.
“Sorry?”
“It’s work. Money goes in. Results come out. Nothing to feel.”
There’s a pause. Clark studies him for a second longer than polite. Then: “That’s a very… pragmatic answer.”
“I’m a pragmatic person.”
“You’re not one for grand statements, huh?”
“No. You can quote me on that.”
Clark chuckles. It’s an honest sound that feels too alive for this office. It startles Bruce a little. It’s bright, like breaking glass in reverse, something shattered being put back together.
Clark shifts forward in the chair and rests both elbows on the desk. “Okay, then. No grand statements. Why start with the community shelters? Most people in your position go for flashy projects. Hospitals, museums, naming rights.”
“Because people need a place to sleep before they need a place to be remembered."
“That’s actually a really good line."
“It’s not a line.”
“Still a good one.”
Thunder shakes the window panes in a sharp percussion. Bruce shifts his focus to it, trying to smother the strange heat crawling up the back of his neck. He can feel Clark watching him. Not with the detached precision of a reporter, no, but with a kind of quiet interest that feels dangerous. Like he’s trying to see past the scaffolding.
He shouldn’t look at people like that.
Bruce shouldn’t be looked at like that.
“You don’t really do interviews, do you, Mr. Wayne?”
An unexpected question. Bruce blinks once, twice, before exhaling through his nose. It’s a huff of breath that could be mistaken for amusement if it weren’t so tired. “No. Not if I can help it.”
Clark grins faintly. “I thought so. Took me three months and about a dozen unanswered emails to even get someone from your office to call me back. Your assistant’s got a kill list, by the way. I think I barely made it off of it.”
“She’s thorough. It’s part of why I keep her around.”
“Well, she does a good darn job. I had to pull every string I could think of. Perry White actually laughed when I asked for this. Said I’d have an easier time getting an interview with Bigfoot.”
“Did you?”
Clark blinks. “Did I what?”
“Get the interview.”
Bruce is gifted with Clark’s startled laugh—brilliant and unguarded. “Guess I did.”
The sound lingers in the room longer than it should. Bruce hates how it stirs something small and foreign in his chest. He looks to the side, focusing on a windowpane instead. Rain snakes down in quaking rivulets.
“I don’t enjoy interviews,” he admits again, quieter this time. “They tend to turn into something else. Spectacle. Dissection. People looking for a headline to explain me.”
Clark’s pen stills mid-scribble. “I’m not here to explain you.”
“Hm.”
“I’m here to understand. That’s different.”
Bruce studies him. The earnestness in his face would be laughable if it weren’t so disarming. It’s not an angle or a performance. This man actually means it.
That almost makes it worse.
“You can’t understand me from a few questions,” Bruce counters.
Clark hums. “That’s relatable, actually.”
A low sound lurches up Bruce’s throat: almost a laugh, but too bitter to count. “Relatable,” he parrots. “That’s not a word people usually use with me.”
“Maybe that’s because they haven’t tried hard enough.”
Bruce doesn’t know what to say to that. He can feel his pulse crawling under his skin in an uncomfortable rhythm. His body feels like a house that’s settling unevenly, the foundation cracking in places no one can see.
“Mr. Kent,” Bruce grits out, “You’ll find there’s nothing much worth printing. No grand mission statement. No secret philosophy. I do the work because it needs doing. That’s it.”
“You don’t think that’s worth printing?” Clark asks, a boyish tilt to his head that would come off as flippant on anyone else. On him, it’s genuine. His glasses slide halfway down his nose when he moves, and he pushes them back up with the same absent gesture Bruce has seen a hundred nervous men make.
“It’s . . . just the truth. And truth isn’t marketable.”
“You sound like you’ve had this conversation before.”
“I have,” Bruce says. “A hundred times, in different words. People like to ask why. They think they can categorize you. Billionaire, orphan, philanthropist, introvert—they’ll find the part that makes sense."
Clark's eyes narrow as if he’s cataloguing something unseen. He taps the capped end of his pen against his notebook, then speaks with careful sincerity.
“Excuse me if I’m overstepping, Mr. Wayne, but I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”
“I’ve been given more than enough credit in my life.” Bruce’s mouth twists. “None of it deserved.”
The words feel like a misfire.
They scrape past his throat in the form of a metallic, unfiltered, splintered confession. It lands between them with an ugly finality, a piece of himself flung into open air before he could think to reel it back.
Bruce can almost see the sound of it, the way it hums against the glass and crawls up the walls like smoke. He imagines his sternum creaking under pressure, the bone bowing like warped steel. If he breathes too deep, Bruce thinks, he might split open. Let all the black, oily things inside him spill across the floor.
“I didn’t mean for this to sound like an interrogation,” Clark reassures. The city lights from the window slants across his face, cleaving him into two worlds. On one side, shadow pools in the soft dip beneath his cheekbone; on the other, Gotham’s pulse catches on his skin. He’s still soaked from the rain, shirt damp, a single strand of hair clinging stubbornly to one temple. He looks alive, carrying warmth into a room that’s long forgotten what warmth is. “I just wanted to know what keeps you doing it. The work. The foundation. Everything.”
He offers a crooked smile to soften the question, but Bruce barely sees it. His eyes flick instead to Clark’s hands. Big, strong, veins visible beneath the skin. Hands that look like they could crush brick or steady a falling structure, yet they only cradle a notebook.
Bruce’s own hands rest flat on the desk.
He flexes his fingers once to feel the creak of tendons. The motion feels alien, like he’s operating machinery that doesn’t quite belong to him anymore. His body has become an amalgam of duties, each part bolted on to keep him moving. If he stopped, if he unbolted even one screw . . . he wasn't sure what would happen.
“What keeps me going?” Bruce echoes, quieter now. “Habit, mostly. Momentum. I think if I stopped, I’d—”
He breaks off. The next breath catches on something sharp.
The room feels too bright suddenly, the windows too wide. His reflection stares back at him from the glass, distorted, something preserved in formaldehyde. For a second he imagines his insides hardening that way: organs turned to wax, heart to stone, blood thickening into tar. He feels the slow betrayal of the body trying to protect itself from what it’s housing.
He swallows hard. His jaw tightens until it clicks.
Clark shifts again, the chair creaking softly. He leans in closer. Close enough that Bruce can smell the rain on him, the trace of aftershave mixed with something clean. Cedar, maybe, or unpolluted air. “What is it?”
Bruce exhales. “Some people are good at living."
"And you don't think you're one of them?"
"No."
There’s a furrow in Clark’s brow now, and his thumb traces the journal’s edge like he’s smoothing out a thought before speaking it. “You seem to be doing alright to me,” he says casually. “For someone who doesn’t think he’s good at living.”
A disbelieving sound. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew me.”
“Maybe not,” Clark admits. “But you haven’t kicked me out yet.”
Bruce’s body reacts before his mind can argue. A strange, crawling heat bubbles beneath his skin. His heart flutters once, a nervous tremor, a moth bruising itself against glass.
He should end the interview. He knows he should.
Bruce can almost see the sequence of it in his head: he stands, offers some polite half-apology, calls to the assistant to escort Kent out. He watches the elevator doors close. Silence returns. Routine reclaims him. The walls seal up again.
Instead, he just sits there. Heavy, inert, something in him thrumming.
“You’re not what I expected,” Bruce deadpans.
The journalist’s eyebrows lift, the movement quick and curious. “Really? What did you expect?”
“A reporter chasing a story.”
The light catches on Clark’s lenses, masking both eyes for a heartbeat before they come back into view: bright, blue, unguarded. A grin blooms across his mouth. His teeth are blindingly perfect, too white for Gotham’s gray palette. Bruce almost hates him for it.
“Well, I hate to disappoint, Mr. Wayne.”
Bruce nods dismally before peering down at his hands again. The veins stand out like blue wires under the skin. They look odd. Appendages grafted on for the purpose of work, not touch.
Can the journalist tell that he’s uncomfortable? That he’s seconds away from peeling out of his own skin like an animal caught in a trap?
Breathe. Don’t think. Act natural.
Shit. Is he breathing too fast?
“You’re not nearly as difficult as people say.”
Clark’s voice cuts through the static. It hits like a small, bright stone dropped into a murky pond. The surface ripples. Bruce freezes, dazed by the interruption. He recovers quickly.
“Never let a first impression fool you,” Bruce warns.
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”
The word sir scrapes against Bruce’s nerves in a way he can’t define. Deference makes him uncomfortable; politeness feels like distance dressed up as respect. Still, it’s better than pity.
The silence that follows stretches long and thin, but not unkindly so. Clark lowers his gaze to his notebook again. His pen hovers for a beat, caught between thought and motion. Bruce watches the purse of his lips, the concentration softening his whole face. Then, with a quiet click, Clark shuts the notebook. The sound is soft but final.
A small mercy for Bruce’s overworked nerves.
“Coffee?”
Honestly, Bruce doesn’t know why he asks the question. It slips out before he can stop it, unfiltered, impulsive in a way that doesn’t belong to him anymore. Clark is clearly caught off guard. Hell, Bruce is too.
“Uh—yeah. Sure. I mean, if it’s not too much trouble—”
“There’s some in the kitchen, if you’re interested.”
“Oh.” Clark sets his journal down on the desk with a nod. “Well, in that case . . .”
Bruce rises stiffly. His knees ache, reminding him of the previous night’s patrol. A bad landing in a back alley, a criminal’s pipe that caught him across the thigh. Nothing broken. Just bruised enough to keep him humble.
He moves anyway. Motion is defiance and the illusion of control.
Clark trails behind him into the adjoining room. He looks around with that same disarming curiosity that makes Bruce feel dissected.
The kitchenette, like most of Wayne Tower, looks lived-in only by ghosts. It’s sleek and sterile, a rich man’s idea of domesticity. Black marble counters veined like frozen lightning. A wall of glossy cabinets no one’s ever opened. The faint hum of a thousand-dollar espresso machine gleaming beneath the low amber lights.
All of it is just a chrome monument to wealth and isolation.
Two mugs sit on a tray beside the French Press. They’re absurdly expensive: hand-thrown ceramic, imported from somewhere Bruce can’t even remember. He bought them years ago when Alfred still managed the household. Now, they just gather dust like everything else.
He wipes one absently with a thumb before setting it down.
Clark steps closer, eyes bright as he takes in the view of rain-slicked Gotham through the panoramic window beyond. His gaze jumps from the machine, to the marble, to the meticulous emptiness.
“Holy cow,” Clark breathes. “You could run a café out of here!”
Bruce doesn’t answer. His attention is fixed on the coffee pouring into the mug. He relishes in the hiss of steam. It’s ridiculous, but he focuses on it like it matters. A grounding ritual in a life stripped of them.
He realizes, dimly, that he’s never asked an interviewer if they wanted anything before. Never offered or thought to. Reporters come and go, their questions invasive, their eyes sharp. They want pieces of him, not coffee. And he’s always been glad to oblige them with nothing.
So why now?
Why him?
Maybe because Clark doesn’t look at Bruce like a billionaire or a mystery to be solved. He looks at him like a person who’s simply there. Breathing. Existing.
Bruce hates how unfamiliar it is.
He hands Clark the mug. Their fingers brush for a fraction of a second, but Bruce feels it like a jolt through the bone.
Clark’s fingers are warm. Bruce’s is not.
"Didn't think you'd be the type to share your caffeine." Clark brandishes that gentle, maddeningly earnest curve of his mouth. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’m not,” Bruce mumbles.
Clark blows across the surface of his coffee. His glasses have fogged slightly from the steam, which he removes to wipe on his shirt. The sleeves are rolled just enough to show two muscular forearms.
Bruce tears his eyes away. His own reflection catches in the dark glass of the window: pale, hollow, gently monstrous beside Clark’s glow. He feels like the ghost of the house, accidentally mistaken for its owner.
“You make this place seem almost livable,” Clark remarks, taking a sip. “Doesn’t look as empty as the tabloids make it sound.”
Bruce arches an eyebrow. “You read the tabloids?”
“Oh, um. Research.”
“And what did your research tell you about me?”
Clark sets the mug on the counter. His expression folds into exaggerated thoughtfulness. Not in real concentration, no, but in mimicry of it. The kind of performative thinking that’s half-joke. His mouth quirks, one corner lifting before the other, a grin trapped in the process of becoming one.
Bruce can tell he’s pretending because no one who really thinks wears that kind of light in their face. Thought, in Bruce’s experience, is a dark and lonely thing. A crawlspace, not a spotlight.
Clark’s version looks like sunlight filtered through leaves: dappled, brilliant, absurdly unguarded.
“That you’re a myth. A mystery. The kind of guy who makes people write long think-pieces about what tragedy does to genius.” Clark scratches at the back of his neck, glancing away as if suddenly aware of how much space he’s taking up in the sterile kitchen. “Also that you throw charity galas you rarely attend and own four vintage cars no one’s ever seen you drive.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t usually believe anything that comes with a paparazzi watermark. But . . . I guess I was curious. You’ve got this reputation, you know? Like you’re some kind of phantom haunting your own tower.”
Bruce frowns. “I’m not surprised."
“For the record, I don’t believe that,” Clark reassures. “But I do think you’re a brooding genius with an allergy to interviews and an unnatural fondness for gargoyles.”
“They stay where you put them. Can’t say that about much else in this city.”
That does it.
Clark breaks into laughter. His whole body joins in, shoulders shaking, head tipping slightly forward. The sound is rich, boyish, unafraid of being heard. It fills the space between them. Warms it.
Bruce only watches.
It’s disarming, how loud life sounds when this man is the one making it. His laughter seems to find color even in the gray hum of the rain. The air shifts with it. The shadows loosen. The kitchen feels smaller, yes, but not in a suffocating way; smaller in the sense that Bruce can suddenly feel its edges, as if he’s no longer standing in an endless dark but in a room that contains him.
“Guess that’s one way to keep loyal company," Clark grins.
Bruce doesn’t return the smile, though the sharpness in his stare does dull. Almost absently, he hears himself ask, “You really did run the last few blocks, didn’t you?”
Clark appears surprised by the shift in topic, then shrugs, as if embarrassed to be caught. “Guilty. Didn’t want to keep you waiting. Not that you seem like the type to enjoy company.”
“I don’t.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Bruce doesn’t grace the sarcasm with a reply. Something in his chest, long calcified, shifts.
Not much.
Just enough to hurt.
Clark’s laughter dies mid-breath when he realizes Bruce hasn’t joined in. All brightness drains from his face, replaced by a flicker of panic. The confident journalist suddenly seems unsure of where to look.
“Sorry,” Clark starts, smile faltering as his hand shoots up to adjust his glasses: a nervous reflex. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean to make light of anything. I mean, obviously you don’t actually hang out with gargoyles. That would be—well, weird.” Color creeps up to the tips of his ears. “God, sorry. Wow, that sounded way better in my head.”
Bruce stares. Observes how the rain has curled a few strands of Clark’s hair against his temples. How his shoulders, broad as they are, seem to slope under the weight of his own politeness.
The man built like a myth is all flustered over a joke.
And before Bruce can stop himself, something small and traitorous breaks across his face.
A half-smile.
Brief, unsummoned, the first movement of warmth in a body that’s forgotten how. It startles him. He feels it like a jolt beneath the ribs, that unfamiliar flex of muscle, as if his face has remembered an old language he thought long dead.
Clark seems just as surprised. His eyes widen a fraction, that cornflower blue gone soft around the edges.
Neither of them says anything. The room hums with the rain, the faint whir of the tower’s heating vents, the heartbeat pulse of something neither can name.
Bruce is the first to glance away. His voice emerges rougher than intended, the low gravel of someone who hasn’t used it much for anything other than small talk.
“No need to apologize. Sarcasm isn’t lost on me.”
The line lands like a pebble tossed into still water, and Clark’s reaction ripples outward. Relief blooms. “Yeah?” he says, the word full with cautious optimism.
Bruce doesn’t answer. He can’t.
His gaze drifts to the coffee maker on the counter. Sleek, chrome, worth more than most people’s rent. A gleaming piece of machinery, perfectly precise, perfectly soulless. He focuses on it because it’s safe.
Because it doesn’t look back at him and see anything.
He pretends he isn’t still reeling from the fact that he almost smiled at all. From the startling truth that it happened in the first place.
Clark doesn’t seem as stunned anymore. If anything, he looks more alive now than when he walked in. The color is back in his cheeks, and there’s a gleam of something unguarded behind his glasses.
Then he wets his lips, peers at Bruce, and says carefully, “Maybe . . . maybe I can interview you again sometime?”
It’s almost embarrassing how fast Bruce’s head snaps up.
“What?”
Clark doesn’t back down. If anything, the firmness in his tone is tempered by something gentler. Concern, maybe, or that infuriating sincerity Bruce can’t seem to read without feeling off-balance.
“You can pick what we talk about next time. Something you actually want people to know. Something that shows them . . .” He falters a little, searching for the right words. His eyes flick briefly to the rain-misted skyline before returning to Bruce. “Shows them more than just the headlines.”
Bruce is at a loss for words.
His first instinct is to shut it down. He can feel the words forming, the familiar defense: That won’t be necessary. I don’t do press. I don’t want people to know me.
Except the refusal doesn’t come.
It would be easier to say no. It always is. Retreat is Bruce’s most fluent language: a silence so total it feels like armor. He could disappear behind it again, let the noise of the world fade to nothing. He’s good at turning inward until solitude becomes structure, purpose, penance.
But there’s something in Clark’s face that makes it impossible.
Maybe it’s the earnest slope of his brow, the steady warmth behind his dimples, or the tension around his mouth like he’s not sure if he’s overstepped. There’s a hope there.
Hope that isn’t naïve. Faith that doesn’t demand anything in return.
It catches Bruce off guard, that light. It feels undeserved. It feels dangerous.
He’s certainly not used to being looked at like this. Not by someone who doesn’t want a quote or a favor or a slice of the Wayne mystique. Clark isn’t prying. He’s offering. A chance, a choice, something almost gentle.
Bruce feels like he’s being seen.
And the realization unsettles him more than it should.
When he finally speaks, his voice sounds strange to his own ears. “You think there’s something worth showing?”
Clark doesn’t hesitate. “I do.”
Bruce exhales slowly and leans back against the counter. The skyscrapers’ glow bleeds through the rain-slick glass behind him, painting him in borrowed color: soft golds, sterile whites, the pulse of Gotham’s broken heart.
A strange, half-forgotten impulse stirs within him. Not hope, exactly, but something similar to the memory of it. Bruce nods once.
“Alright.”
Clark’s jaw drops. The sound he makes is somewhere between a gasp and a choke. “Wait, really?”
“I choose the topic,” Bruce adds quickly, as if to reclaim some ground.
“Deal!” he chirps instantly, smiling wide enough that his face just might split at the seams. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Just this once."
“Yes, sir.”
The smile lingers in Clark’s voice, and for the briefest moment, Bruce allows himself to meet it halfway with a quiet tug at his mouth. Clark seems to notice. His expression shifts again, that flicker of wonder resurfacing.
Clark only stays a few minutes longer after that—long enough to exchange the polite formalities that people use when they don’t know what to do with what’s just passed between them. He tucks his notebook back into his satchel, says thank you, and then extends his hand.
Bruce takes it this time.
It’s an ordinary gesture. The sort of thing men do without thought or consequence. Yet the moment their palms meet, something in Bruce flinches.
Clark’s grip is firm and blood-hot and sure of itself. The skin of his palm is rougher than Bruce expected. They’re callused in places that speak to work and living, not just writing.
Bruce’s own palm feels too cold. Too pale. The drag of old scars catches against Clark’s skin: reminders of nights spent in alleys and rooftops, of a life made from violence and vengeance. The bones of his knuckles suddenly seem too prominent, his fingers too thin and tense.
Where Clark’s touch gives, Bruce’s only receives.
And for one strange moment, their hands fit in a way that feels like a contradiction made physical. Warmth against chill, ease against control, sunlight meeting stone. Bruce feels the temperature of it travel through his arm, pulse-light.
Then Clark lets go.
It’s absurd how quickly the absence registers. The air feels thinner, colder, as though something vital has been drawn out of it. The echo of that touch is caught in the sinew of Bruce’s fingers.
Bruce flexes his hand once as if testing for damage. But all he feels is the faint imprint of heat that isn’t his—and the disquieting realization that, for a second there, he hadn’t wanted to let go.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Wayne,” Clark says. That smile of his has grown sheepish. “And for the coffee.”
“Sure.”
“I appreciate it.” Then, as if realizing he should leave before he overstays the miracle of being allowed in, Clark takes a half-step toward the elevator. “I’ll, uh . . . be in touch about that second interview.”
“Goodnight, Mr. Kent.”
Clark nods and starts for the elevator, shoes clicking softly against the polished floor. The wet hem of his tie sways with each step, dark and heavy, leaving dots of rain where it brushes his chest. He glances back once, hand lifted in a small wave.
Bruce doesn’t return it. He just watches, silently, as the doors slide closed and Clark disappears behind them.
The tower feels emptier in the quiet that follows.
He sits at his desk for a while, staring at the faint reflection of himself in the window: half man, half ghost, haloed in the glow of a city that will never stop needing him. The rain has thinned to a trembling silver against the glass. The world outside looks washed clean, but he knows better. Gotham never really cleanses; it just changes its stains.
And yet . . .
Bruce thinks of Clark’s smile. The way it arrived without artifice or demand. The way it didn’t flinch when faced with everything Bruce wasn’t.
He rubs at the spot on his hand where Clark’s warmth still lingers. It feels absurd, this pull to someone he barely knows. But absurdity is almost refreshing, a break from the heavy logic of solitude.
For the first time in months, Bruce doesn’t reach for the bottle in his desk drawer. Doesn’t drown the static with noise or work or sleepless nights. He just sits.
Somewhere below, the streets gleam wet and alive. He imagines Clark out there. Climbing into a taxi, shirt collar turned up against the drizzle, that impossible light still following him through the rain.
Bruce feels it then.
The strangest sensation, as if the room has drawn one quiet, collective breath. Somewhere beneath the hum of the tower and the distant pulse of sirens, he can almost hear something cracking open inside him.
Not breaking. Not this time.
It feels like longing.