The Soup Begins To Thicken

sure, clark could do all that with his pinky finger if he wanted to, but after seeing bruce do it, he doesn't want to.

on one of their first missions together, they're sneaking in to one of luthor's compounds, and batman brings them to a vent. it's solid metal, secured well just like the rest of luthor's building. clark leans forward to peek over batman's shoulder at it.

"i can get that, if you—"

batman cuts him off by digging his fingers behind the grate and pulling. the metal bends under his strength, creaking as it's pulled from the wall, half-inch thick bolts and all. batman glances back at clark, the barest of smirks on his lips. clark's jaw snaps shut so fast he bites his tongue.

and the more he watches, the more he goes insane. batman carries clark over his shoulder once when he's injured, and all clark can think about for a while is the flex of batman's arm around his waist. clark rushes to hold up a collapsing ceiling and protect civilians, but batman is already there, braced against a pillar, and now clark can hardly focus. batman rescues a dozen civilians from a sinkhole, sometimes pulling them out two at a time—clark wishes he could feel batman's iron grip around his wrists, or have his large thighs pressing down on him.

he comes to the cave once when bruce is working out, all slick and flushed and powerful. clark barely stops himself from drooling.

it's the raw physicality of it. the way his muscles tense and bulge with exertion, the little grunt bruce releases after doing something that requires a decent amount of strength, the sharp exhale when he lets go of the weight. it all drives clark wild.