?¿GOT SHIPS?¿

He finds out he much much prefers gardening when there's a hunk of a certain super doing the bulk of the work. Bruce can lounge in his seat, sipping a glass of iced tea as he watches the muscle ripple underneath golden, sun-kissed skin. The sight of fond exasperation on Clark's face when Bruce yells out instructions is an added plus.

That smile, the "tired but proud of a good day's work" farm-boy grin quirks across Clark's lips and Bruce hops down from his perch. He saunters over and drags Clark closer with fingers hooked in the other's waistband. "You're doing such a good job, honey," he purrs, leaning up to peck those lips, fighting back his own smile when Clark wraps his large paws around Bruce's him, pulling them flush as he deepens the kiss. Regretfully, Bruce pulls away with a chuckle. Clark tries to draw him back in but Bruce stops him with a swat to his chest.

"Stop that. You've still got the left side to do," Bruce orders brattily, smacking Clark's ass. He darts away with a light laugh before Clark can grab him, his skirt twirling around him.

"Stop distracting me then," Clark pouts, picking up the bag of fertilizer. Still his eyes follows the silhouette of the other, greedily drinking up the sight of pale thighs that just so happens to be revealed when Bruce's skirt hikes up. And the tiniest flash of all his teeth marks splattered across the expanse of those inner thighs, coincidentally grazed by Bruce's wandering fingers.

"Get to work, Kent," Bruce calls out, making Clark huff, more of fondness than any real annoyance. Deep in his chest, a trickle of anticipation sparks to life, like a predator catching the first whiff of prey and an inevitable chase. He's gonna do this and everything else, then the rest of the day will be his for the taking. One particular person, in fact.

“area woman thanking her lucky stars that batman and superman fell out on the same day she was due to go to boss’ niece’s bat mitzvah”

“arkham guard astonished by trip to iron heights, only now learning what locks are for”

“area man pretty sure he should be making more than $60k a year if his boss has 10 billion dollars to waste on robotic exosuit”

“grown man who dresses in halloween costume every night thinks clown his biggest problem”

“disappointed child realizes Booster Gold at birthday party the real one, not just a guy in a costume”

“Earth totally not a tax haven, say Green Lantern Corps as they assign eighth lantern to same planet”

“Entire Population Missing from North Dakota Town ‘Probably nothing to worry about’ says governor.”

“Silence from Vatican continues after 5th Definitely-Not-Christian Pantheon appears on earth.”

“Local woman thankful for OSHA compliant safety railings overlooking open-air vats of toxic chemicals.”

“Not all enbys shapeshift. Not all shapeshifters nonbinary: Nonbinary Shapeshifters speak about harmful stereotypes”

“Local kid dreams of being superhero, tragically orphaned”

“Just break up already: Another fight between Superman and Batman leaves citizens tired of their toxic yoai situationship.”

“Meteor hurtling towards Earth decides, ‘Maybe not’ following diplomatic talks.”

This people make his tati sad. He will make them pay.

The funny thing is that Bruce is unaware of that, and really thinks that Dick is just a normal, cute child.

Bruce, happy for once to not worry about another child who follow him during patrol: Richard is a sweet child, so innocent

Damian: Innocent? That thing almost scarred Drake for life

Bruce : I know we have our problems, Damian, but it's not nice calling Dick a thing.

Damian: Father, I don't know how to say it to you, but that's not a child. He is a demon from hell.

Bruce: Nonsense. He is just scared because of you. Don't be so mean with him.

Meanwhile, Robin is following Red Hood and Nightwing, laughing like the Joker, causing them nightmares and other physical harm. Nobody else seems aware of the demon child haunting them.

*sigh*

How could you cause so much property damage and more importantly damage to yourself in a single night?

You three are supposed to be more mature than this!

Damian, Tim and Jason: *suddenly hit with the sadness and guilt of disappointing their Dad and wanting wanting to make him smile at them again* We-

Bruce: And not to mention how horrible of an example you are setting for Dick! He should not think that getting so many injuries in one night is normal.

Damian, Tim and Jason: But-

Dick: *appears in the door* Tati? Can you read me a good night story, please?

Bruce: *softly* Yes of course chum. I‘ll be right there with you. I‘m just gonna get us both hot coco and while I‘m doing that you can go and pick out a book, okay?

*Dick nods and leaves; Bruce turns to the other three*

Now you three. You will go clean up your injuries and tomorrow you will go an fix all that property damage.

Jason: Y- You won’t help us with our injuries?

Bruce: You are more than capable of doing it yourself- as you‘ve stated many times- so: no. Because I gotta go an make some coco and then read Dick his bedtime story.

*leaves*

_…_ later in med bay_…_

Tim: *wincing while disinfecting a child sized bite mark on his arm* I also wanted hot coco

Jason: *sniffing* And Bruce knows I love when he reads to me

Damian: Non of this was our fault. This thing is just pitting Father against us.

Jason: Right?! Da- Bruce didn’t even come and patch us up!

Tim: And did you notice how sweet Bruce was when he spoke with Dick?

Damian: We need to make father see that he is being brainwashed!

Also I don’t hate Clark or SuperBat I just like the drama. Sue me.

(That was a joke please don’t sue me 🥺)

Early days of the Justice League where the only members are Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern (Hal Jorden), The Flash, and Martian Manhunter and they all know each others secret identities.

Superman and Batman have been dating outside the public eye however unbeknownst to Bruce, due to Bruce’s playboy persona Clark treats Bruce like a dirty little secret.

At first Bruce is okay staying quiet about their relationship. Alfred knows and that’s all Bruce needs. However Bruce slowly starts getting hints that something isn’t quite right in their relationship when Clark even refuses to acknowledge Bruce’s existence during the few public events they do happen to attend as Bruce the billionaire playboy and Clark the reporter. Things reach their climax when Bruce keeps hearing about Clark’s closeness to Lois Lane in both personas.

Bruce confronts Clark about his behavior and the rumors but Clark is able to convince (gaslight?) Bruce that there’s nothing going on. Bruce still feels wrong footed so he tries to push Clark to make their relationship public. Clark gives logical excuses which Bruce reluctantly accepts. But Bruce does become more paranoid about their relationship, becoming more touchy with Clark culminating in Clark and Bruce caught kissing in the Watchtower by Barry.

Bruce is embarrassed at being caught in such an intimate position “at work” but before he can say anything Barry flashes away. Unbeknownst to Bruce, Clark is panicking.

Again this is early days so the incident spreads like wildfire in the small group of heroes and Bruce starts getting dirty looks, conversations that stop mid conversation when he walks in etc, from the other members. At first Bruce attributes it to people feeling jealous of Bruce for bagging The Superman and decides that since the secret is out now he can make his relationship public, at least amongst their team. Except when Bruce tries to show his boyfriend affection in the cafeteria Diana scolds Bruce, accusing him of trying to mess around with a taken man. Diana scolds Bruce, telling him that she tried to defend Bruce and other such things only to be disappointed by Bruce’s shamelessness and lack of remorse.

Bruce is stunned because he has now idea what she’s talking about? Of course Clark is taken, he’s taken by Bruce!

Bruce gives Clark a look silently asking for both help and an explanation except Clark is cringing and trying to make himself look smaller. Bruce tries to interrupt the tirade, saying that he and Clark have been together for some time, except that instead of helping his case that just makes people more disgusted because Louis and Clark had been a thing for a year.

A year.

Bruce is just standing there, disassociating, getting reamed on all sides for definitely being a home wrecker and having the audacity to admit it. Clark finally jumps in, trying to smooth things over, tries to explain that it’s all a misunderstanding, that no one is a home wrecker, it’s just Batman playing a bad joke, etc. But the team is genuinely mad at Bruce.

Finally though Bruce snaps out of it and calmly walks up to Superman only to punch him. Full strength straight to the face (with kryptonite of course). The room pauses. Clark his the floor and his nose is definitely broken. Bruce demands Clark to explain.

Finally realizing he has nowhere left to hide Clark confesses to his affair (again which type is up to you) with Lois. Batman wasn’t the home wrecker it was Lois who’d unintentionally had pursued a taken man. Clark admits to being in love with Lois and Bruce and not being able to choose specially since Lois loves Superman and while Bruce does loves Clark, he’s also a man whore. He tries to say that last part real fast and quietly but it’s definitely caught by Bruce.

This is the revelation that kills Bruce, Bruce could have justified the cheating it loving a man that didn’t even like him much less respect him? He is shocked, humiliated, and absolutely heartbroken.

Finally Bruce gets his emotions under control and forced his face back into the cowl and tells Clark that if Bruce so much as sees an inch of Superman’s cape in Gotham, Clark will find out exactly how much kryptonite Bruce has.

Walking away Bruce tells Clark that they’re over.

In the aftermath Bruce returns to the watchtower as normal while everyone is on tip toes around him. They all think Bruce is going to explode on Clark but Bruce acts like nothing happened. Trust has been irreparably broken with Clark but Batman is nothing if not a professional. He’ll pull his weight and throw around his seniority to get things done but any semblance of camaraderie is firmly gone. Bruce trusts Clark with the planet, he just doesn’t trust him with him heart.

Years pass, and canon happens. No one outside of the founding members of the JL forgets that Superman cheated on the Bat but it just doesn’t get brought up.

That is until the Young Justice, (Tim’s team) discovers footage of Bruce and Clark kissing in the watchtower years ago. Once again the news spread like wildfire across this expanded version of the superhero community (because of course it does) until it reaches everyone but the founding members who are on an off-world mission.

The general consensus is that Batman fumbled a “baddie” (Clark) though it’s also seen as a good thing since now they have Jon. Tim and Kon also have a chance now to make up for the lost opportunity. It also obviously wasn’t the worst thing since Batman and Superman are still the World’s Finest and their teamwork is the community’s standard.

When the founding members come back to earth they all hear about the news/rumors and as they’re collectively deciding why to do, a younger hero asks Bruce how he feels about the son that’s most like Bruce (Tim) dating Kon aka Superman’s clone.

Bruce thinks about it for a moment, Kon despite his physical appearance and being the product of a megalomaniac and Superman, has grown to be a good man. Bruce could keep quiet about his true feelings and the past but honestly Bruce hadn’t kept his mouth shut when it happened all those years ago, he wasn’t going to be quiet now.

So he say it out loud. “I hate it.”

Of course the other heroes in the area (minus the founding members who are stone faced but kinda panicking) are give Bruce flack about being an overprotective father.

Tim complains that just because Bruce wasn’t good enough for Superman doesn’t mean Tim isn’t good enough for Kon.

And again Bruce considers keeping the peace but, there are more heroes now than ever before. There are multiple teams all over the world and the universe. Bruce had nothing to worry about if one hero was shown to be less than the paragon of good. Most importantly, he was Bruce Goddamned Wayne. He didn’t need to be good enough for anyone, people had to be good enough for him.

So Bruce says: “You’re right, I wasn’t good enough for Superman,” Tim smiles but Bruce continues, “but neither was Lois seeing as Superman had to fuck us both to feel like a man.”

After that bombshell the Watchtower is dead silence as younger heroes process the fact that the Batman just admitted to having been cheated on by The Superman, paragon of hope.

Cue denials and arguing because there’s no way that happened and Bruce just stands there looking at Superman, the once upon a time love of his love, trying to hide once again from the consequences of his actions.

“He’s right there just ask him.” Bruce tells his audience.

And Superman is bombarded by questions from all sides and seeing Batman and the rest of the founders doing nothing, finally he admits that yes he fucked up in his youth but he’s a changed man he swears.

Amongst all the gathered heroes Dick is the most disillusioned. He grew up seeing his adopted father (Bruce) and his pseudo uncle (Clark) as great partners and remembers all the times he tried to get the two together when Clark and Lois had been on a break. Then feels even more despair because of all the times he had said he would have preferred to have Superman as a father and even ran off to him when he and Bruce had a fight.

Then he does the math on the video, the math on when Lois and Clark got married, and when he himself came into the picture as Bruce’s ward and he pales. Dick realizes that Superman used Dick as the key to still be involved in Bruce’s life like a toxic ex.

Dick, hand to his mouth: Oh my god I idolized you.

Clark: Dick-

Dick: All those times I joked about you being better than B. When I complained about being the child of divorce.

Clark: Dick please I can explain

Dick: Did you get some sort of sick pleasure seeing me become verbal because of you? How much did you enjoy forcing B to let you into Gotham just so that I would agree to eat something!

Clark now crying: Please it wasn’t like that. I just wanted to help you.

Dick: You used me to stay in B’s life, you used all of us! Oh my god I think I’m going to be sick.

Dick runs off and instead of chasing after him Superman turns to Batman, pleading for help: Batman please, you know I’m not that kind of man.

Batman blank faced: I know.

People are expecting Bruce to rip into Superman but Bruce let go of his anger a long time ago. He tells everyone to go cool their heads and then follows after Dick.

The story spreads and it shakes the hero world. Superman paragon of hope and justice, a cheater. Batman the cold emotionless bastard a victim. Now no one can blame him for discouraging inter team dating. Bruce knows what it’s like when a relationship turns sour and it’s not like other people are like him and can put the mission before feelings. If anything the incident is what everyone agrees on is what turned Batman into a soldier. And this is even before people realized that Superman didn’t even like Bruce. Old videos are even unsurfaced of old team ups between Batman and Superman before the break up that shows that the current iteration of the duo is just a pale comparison of what it was before.

It’s a really heartbreaking time for the younger heroes to realize that their seniors do in fact have feet of clay.

As a large pot simmered on the stove, Clark peered inside, eyebrows pinching as he took in the sight. The broth was a rich, golden colour, bright herbs bobbing on the surface. He couldn’t resist the urge to sneak a little taste, just to see how it was coming along. With one finger, he reached forward to dip into the broth, only for a sharp swat to connect with the back of his hand. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, of course, but the shock of it made him jump back nonetheless.

“Clark Joseph Kent,” Martha said, her voice firm but laced with the exasperated affection she reserved solely for her only son. She pointed her finger towards him, waggling it slightly. “I know I raised you better than that. If you want a taste, you’ll get a spoon.” 

Clark flushed with embarrassment, giving her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Ma,” He mumbled, attention being drawn to the sharp sound of vegetables being chopped by her skilled hands. “I’m just… I just want to be perfect.” He confessed, flipping open his small notebook and glancing over the steps he had written so far. “Next is… carrots?” He asked, voice a little uncertain as he watched her hands move with practiced efficiency. He could have chopped every vegetable in the kitchen in the blink of an eye to save her the time and effort, but this was her domain, and he knew better than to try to take over her kitchen. 

She turned, wiping her hands on her apron as she gave him a warm smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’re a sweet boy, Clark, you always have been.” She said, her voice soft. “I always say, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” She mused, humming a soft tune as she swept the carrots into a bowl. “And, well, Bruce might have Alfred to do all his cookin’ for him, but that’s no substitute for a meal made from the heart.” 

Clark couldn’t help the blush that crept up his neck as he wrote down how many she had chopped. He hoped, more than anything, that she would be right about this; that Bruce would see this gesture as something sweet, that it was done only with him in mind. After all, he remembered all too well what it was like to catch a nasty cold when he was young and his powers hadn’t manifested. Each time without fail, Ma would appear at his bedside with a steaming bowl of her special chicken soup and would simply stay until he was finished eating, one hand stroking through his hair. It was a small gesture, but it was one that made him feel infinitely better. 

Bruce deserved that. He deserved to have someone see him when he was vulnerable, who was willing to be with him during that time. He deserved to experience what it’s like, to have every spoonful remind him that he is loved, not for his purpose, but for being himself. 

Adjusting his notebook in his grasp, Clark leaned forward again, standing slightly taller as he watched Ma begin peeling potatoes. This was an important task, one that he was determined to master, for Bruce.

When Dick has to return to Bludhaven after visiting for a while? Bruce’s usually warm, butterscotch scent becomes stale and heavy, dripping with heartbreak at the mere concept of his oldest pup leaving the nest again.

Jason faces the brunt of this involuntary honesty. Each time their mama turns to gaze upon his resurrected son, his scent erupts in overwhelming waves of love and awe, so potent that it’s nearly suffocating. (Jason was always thankful that his helmet filtered scents, just for this reason.)

Tim takes full advantage of their mama’s weakness by deliberately reporting to him about each successful case he cracks. There’s nothing, after all, that settles him quite like the way his mama’s scent does, when it’s filled with nothing but pride. 

Cass, on the other hand, would never dare to exploit their mama’s vulnerability. Instead, she opts to wrap her arms around him as often as she possibly can, scenting him with pure, unadulterated love. And when he returns the favour by drenching her in love and adoration? She can’t help but devolve into content purrs, and truthfully, neither can he.

Duke tries, so, so very hard to avoid taking advantage of it. He really does. But… when an Omega is as smothering as their mama is, there’s no avoiding the cloud of sticky-sweet affection that wells up around him, growing in intensity and warmth with each passing day, until he’s sure the scent has melded entirely with his own.

no evil stepmother/siblings but there is a wealthy boy in his small town that’s always had it out for clark—lex luthor. his father practically rules smallville, abusing their people and thwarting the achievements of others. the luthors only want to see themselves succeed.

and then comes the royal decree for all eligible men and women to attend the prince’s ball and help him find a spouse.

lex luthor gets a personal invitation. clark does not.

but he counts as eligible, doesn’t he? and it’s not like clark actually wants to marry the prince—he’s just interested in attending the ball. if he’s quiet, and inconspicuous, he can enjoy the festivities for one selfish night and go back to his home, curiosity satisfied without any trouble.

his parents, surprisingly, don’t object to the idea. apparently they attended a wayne gala when they were younger, before the former king and queen were killed. they say they enjoyed themselves, explain that even if clark were caught by a guard, the waynes have always been kind to commoners—unlike the luthors.

clark wants to be cautious anyway; he’s more worried about what the luthors would do to his family if they found him attending the ball and “competing” against lex for prince wayne’s hand.

clark’s “fairy god mother” is the alien ship that his parents show him, hidden in the forest behind their farm. it creates a beautiful set of robes that accentuate clark’s waist and bring out his eyes with intricate layering and a rich blue doublet with a deep red cloak. his ma combs his stubborn curls back and fits him with his pa's belt the colour of gold, and they shine pa's deep red boots that he wore to the wayne gala years ago.

his parents tell him to leave the ball by midnight, so that the luthors don't spot him on the way back, and then they send him off. clark rides the family horse, krypto, to the palace, heart thundering in his chest as he arrives and a stableboy tends to his horse.

the interior of the palace is shiny and welcoming, packed full of eligible lords and ladies with their parents. clark sticks to the sidelines, taking in the sheer grandeur and appreciating the live music. more than once, he has to duck out of sight to avoid the luthors as they slink through the ballroom.

not long after, the prince is announced with his own fanfare, a long red carpet rolled out for the lords and ladies to begin lining up to introduce themselves. clark can't stop himself from trying to catch a glimpse. he spots the prince, clad entirely in black with a silver crown laid over his brow, pale blue eyes piercing and alert, with plump lips and a sharp jaw and the perfect tousled look to his hair.

oh, clark thinks, blushing despite himself. he's beautiful.

clark wants to get closer. he so desperately wants to, but the line is in the middle of the room, and it would be easy for the luthors to spot him. he promised his parents he'd be safe and cautious. he won't put the farm in danger because of a fleeting attraction to a man he can never have.

clark drifts to the balcony to give himself some air and get his mind off the prince. it's not hard—the view itself is beautiful. the night sky is endless above him, a swirl of constellations, and clark can see the whole city of gotham from this high up, an impressive sprawl of houses and greenery.

he's so caught up in the scenery that he doesn't notice someone else ducking behind the curtain onto the balcony until they've come up beside him, leaning on the railing.

"that's my favourite ice cream shop down there, at the end of the street," prince bruce wayne whispers to clark, leaning closer to point at a squat building near the edge of the city.

clark barely manages not to startle, white-knuckling the railing beneath him as he makes himself breathe. "do you...have a favourite flavour?" clark asks, thanking the gods that his voice stays steady.

prince wayne glances at him sidelong, his mouth quirking upwards. "dark chocolate," he replies, voice honeyed with warmth. "and you?"

"vanilla," clark replies, sheepish as he tries to adjust his robes and appear more presentable. he runs a hand through his hair, anxious, but only manages to dislodge a few curls. after a few stretching moments of silence, clark asks, "why are you out here?"

prince wayne raises a brow. "it's my balcony," he says, tone curling with amusement.

clark huffs, his ears glowing. "i meant, why aren't you inside with all your suitors?"

now it's wayne's turn to frown. "they're very...pushy," he says slowly, and clark gets the impression that he's picking his words carefully. "and anyway," he continues with a tilt of his head and wide smile. "don't i have a suitor right here?"

clark blushes harder, overwhelmed by the prince's easy flirting and kind eyes. "i...suppose you do," clark says eventually, because he can't admit to the prince that he snuck into his gala with no intention of seeing him at all.

prince wayne smiles, turning to face clark properly. he brings his hand to the crook of clark's elbow and pulls him from the railing to the edge of the balcony. the music from inside drifts out to them, and the prince guides clark through a slow waltz.

clark is absolutely useless at dancing. more than once, he steps on prince wayne's foot, but the prince laughs through clark's stuttered apologies, his eyes crinkling with warmth.

they lose track of time, out there on the edge of the party. their dancing is clumsy and uncoordinated, but prince wayne seems to enjoy just talking with clark, delightfully interested in everything he has to say. clark gets lost in their little bubble, pleasantly warm and happy to talk at lengths with the prince. this is so much better than he ever hoped it would be.

and then the clock strikes twelve. midnight.

clark's easy smile morphs into an expression of panic, and he jerks away from the prince, darting for the balcony door with an apology thrown over his shoulder. he races through the ballroom, thundering down the main steps and calling for his horse.

he's just mounted krypto when prince wayne grabs at his cloak, asking where he's going. clark only apologizes and says he has to go, urging krypto on.

"wait, please," prince wayne begs. "at least tell me your name."

"kal," clark whispers, feeling a pang of guilt at the lie as he turns and kicks krypto forward. his cloak rips under the prince's grip, but he doesn't have time to mourn the damage because the luthor carriage is right there, and he must beat them back to smallville.

his clothes get all torn and muddy as he takes shortcuts through less-travelled roads, but clark makes it back to his farm, relief washing over him as he untacks krypto for the night and sets him in a stall.

when he gets through the back door, smiling giddly and humming the same tune he and the prince had danced to, he stops dead. there, in his living room, is lex luthor, dressed in his expensive ball attire and looking furious.

the luthors put him to work as punishment. clark has to split his time between his parent's farm and the luthors', starting before the sun rises and ending after it sets. the work is gruelling, and tiresome, but clark can't bring himself to regret that one night of stolen bliss, getting to know the prince and the heat of his chest pressed to clark's.

he's so caught up in the doubled work that he doesn't get any of the messages about prince wayne looking for a mysterious man named "kal," and misses all the drama when nobody can seem to find the one prospect from the ball.

it comes to a head when prince wayne personally visits smallville, checking every available household himself for the man who's stolen his heart in so little time.

clark sees the line of horses from his field, but he can't afford to waste time to investigate them, so he ducks his head and gets back to work.

and then prince wayne's horse gets away from him. later, clark will learn that luthor had smacked the poor mare, but at the time he only hears a startling noise and a handful of shout, followed by hoofbeats growing ever closer.

the kingsguard are running, shouting at clark to get out of the way, and—clark recognizes that dark cloak at the front. he braces himself, holds his palms out to calm the mare, and manages to jerk forward and grab the reins when she falters at the sight of him.

“thank you,” prince wayne says as he jogs closer, looking his mare over and patting her neck to soothe her. “such bravery is—” he stops short, brow lowered as he looks clark up and down. he takes a scrap of fabric from his breast pocket and holds it up to clark’s makeshift shirt, a wrap of the cloak he’d worn to the ball. they’re an exact match. “kal,” he says, tone hard with disbelief.

clark’s shoulders rise up to his ears as he winces and says, “it’s clark, actually.”

prince wayne frowns, bringing his hand up to brush clark’s hair off his forehead, the way it had been styled for the ball. “clark,” he repeats, testing out the word. “you lied to me.”

clark looks away, unable to bear the guilt, the ache in prince wayne’s tone. he gestures weakly to the field they stand in. “i couldn’t stay. i have work to do.”

“this is lord luthor’s field,” prince wayne says slowly, eyeing the large house atop the nearest hill. “where is your land?”

clark squeezes his eyes shut. “i am to work these fields as—punishment. for daring to step foot outside of my rank.”

“punishment,” prince wayne echoes, voice dark. all at once, he turns with a whirl of his cape, mounting his horse. “come,” he says, holding out a hand to clark. the moment clark’s hand slips into his, he’s yanked up into the back of the horse.

at prince wayne’s urging, clark guides him to his farm, tearing through luthor’s crops as he does so.

when they reach clark’s home, clark dismounts and looks up at prince wayne, all regal and strong and pretty.

“you will never have to worry about house luthor again. i swear it.”

“thank you, your highness,” clark says, dipping his chin.

“please, call me bruce,” prince wayne replies, that warm smile back on his face.

clark grins and grips bruce’s cloak, tugging him down to bring their mouths together in a crushing, elated kiss. he presses hard into bruce’s mouth, enjoying the slickness of his tongue as they move closer. something in clark’s chest settles, something that hasn’t fit right since he left the prince behind in his palace.

he makes an embarrassing, wanting noise when bruce pulls away, but it’s only enough to look at him properly as their breaths mingle together.

“visit me in gotham sometime,” bruce says, voice low.

clark smiles, excited and terrified in equal measure for what’s to come. he wants this so, so badly.

Clark, in tears: "Your mother."

Dick: "He's not here right now, you can be honest with me."

Clark: "Your mother is a ten."

Dick: "He's a 7 at best!"

By me!

noun; expression of different opinions

Summary:

Quarrel.

Or, a look into the first and most recent argument Bruce Wayne has had with each of his sons.

Each of his sons had given Bruce his fair share of grey hairs, from arguments and other things alike. This is simply a look into a handful of times he and his boys disagreed.

Alternatively titled: batblob and his arguing boys

Bruce still remembers the day of his first argument with Dick.

It was three months, to the day, that his parents had died. Dick was still only legally his ward, and Bruce distinctly remembered being twenty-five and feeling more like a fish out of water every day.

When he thinks back on it now, he can almost laugh.

At the time, though? He could feel his heart breaking and the world coming down around him.

Dick had been training with him for about a month, after quickly figuring out his secret and demanding that he be allowed to help.

On this particular day, Bruce had planned to take a day off from everything and take Dick and Alfred out for a day trip to Metropolis to see a museum that was freshly opened up, watch a ball game, and grab a nice dinner before heading back to Gotham for a rare quiet night in.

At breakfast he shared his ideas with his small family, expecting a cheer of excitement and perhaps even a nod of approval from Alfred.

Instead, Dick threw down the spoon he was mid-bite with, and glared at Bruce.

“Chum, what's wrong?”

Dick, pointedly, didn’t answer.

YOU KNOW WHAT PHOTO IM TALKING ABOUT

https://x.com/thecinesthetic/status/2074581838673408469?s=46

*Sigh* You're lucky you're my youngest. I (unfortunately) do have a soft spot.

-

Bruce can feel the way his throat closes up, saliva building up in his mouth.

There's a growing warmth in his core, an itch between his legs that he highly, highly wants to ignore.

Under the sun, hauling large bales of hay is Clark, working shirtless and glistening with sweat. His biceps bulge with each heft of his arms, his triceps popping when he bends down to pick up another bale. His back on full display as he turns to throw the hay into the stack he's building.

Sweat sliding down the prominent line of his spine and down to where the garter of his boxers are, his jeans sitting lower from the movement.

The sun is beating down, already feeling like it's at its peak at 10 in the morning, and yet it's not the heat that has him feeling warm.

Pressing his thighs together, Bruce is reminded the burn of his skin, that lingering scratch of rough facial hair rubbing his flesh raw until he was shaking, squirting just from feeling the texture of a beard in the crease of his thigh and crotch.

Clark bends down and takes the bale by the straps keeping it all together in its rectangular shape before turning, the movement fluid, natural, routine. Then he throws it, easily, quickly, adding it to the stack, before moving closer to it, reaching up effortlessly to take the reins of the bales and shuffling them around.

His height making it simple to just reach up and fix the structure he's building.

Bruce swallows and crosses his legs, shifts his weight to lean forward, elbow on the table and chin perched on his palm. The weight helps with putting the slightest bit of pressure, his thighs keeping his mass centered to where he wants it to be.

It's not satisfying, but it's enough to keep the pressure building.

Clark ineffectively wipes at the sweat dotting his forehead by sweeping his sweaty forearm across it, but it does have the effect of flexing his arm naturally. A move born out of habit.

The hair on his chest must be drenched now, the hair on his pits sticking to his skin. And Bruce closes his legs tighter as he imagines that body pressing against him, the sweat of their skin mixing, their scents mingling.

Oh, he thinks, Clark musk would be potent. And now he's torn between filling his mouth or letting himself be bent over.

"Hey, doll." He jumps, blinking at the spot where he'd just last seen the man, and lifting his head to see Clark standing by his side, wiping his sweat away with the shirt he'd discarded earlier. "You should go inside, take a nap."

"I'm not tired."

Clark hums, leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of Bruce's head, "You were spacing out, thought the heat was getting to you."

He turns to the pitcher he'd set out, instead of responding. "Lemonade?"

Dimples pop, mouth stretching into a smile, "Yes, please." Clark leans in then, just enough to loom over Bruce's head as he reaches out to take the pitcher and pour himself a glass.

Like this, Bruce can smell that scent of scent, of Clark's natural musk, and he tilts his head just enough to get the most of it without being obvious.

When Clark takes a step back, glass to his mouth, their eyes meet, locked as Clark drains the lemonade in large, audible gulps—a quick three swallows and he's done.

His Adam's apple bobbing along the line of his moist neck.

When he puts the glass down, he positions himself to stand in front of Bruce instead, his free hand reaching forward and propping up on the back of the chair.

"Got something in your mind, doll?"

Bruce's gaze flickers downward then, from his wet chest up to the where he can see the short texture of stubble around his neck, to the thicker bush currently growing on his chin and jaw, then further up to where Clark's look at him, eyes half-lidded but inquiring. Prominent eyebrow raised.

"No." He says with a subtle shake of his head.

"No?" Clark repeats back to Bruce with a tilt of his head, just before leaning down to breathe against a pink-tipped ear. "So, if I do this—" The hand that he'd had gripping the glass comes down, laying flat on a taut thigh, feeling the tension there and the way Bruce squeezes his legs harder together, his fingers are just about skimming along the crotch line, "You don't get any ideas?"

"No," Bruce breathes out with a barely contained shudder, shifting his weight just a bit further forward now to use the fabric of his underwear to run along the seam of him.

Leaning back swiftly, Clark grins, "A'ight, if you say so." With that accent of his, leaning in to give him a peck on the cheek.

Just as he's about to think that Clark would go back to lifting his bales of hay, his chair is tilted, pushing to lean on its two back legs, and the gravity has his stomach in knots, and his thighs pressing so firmly together that the muscles are starting to ache.

Clark looms above him with a smirk, making a show of his one hand sitting on his hip while the other remains on the back of the chair, pushing him down.

Hands gripping the chair, Bruce tries to glare in admonishment even if he knows it won't work, if the smugness on the other man's face is anything to go by. "Put me down."

He makes a thoughtful face, then leans the chair further backward. He can feel himself shaking, trying to keep himself still. "Clark!"

"Care to tell me what goes on in that pretty little head o' your's?"

"I wasn't—" Clark leans the chair even more and at this point, Bruce fears that he's almost parallel to the porch floor. He lets go of the chair in favour of wrapping his fingers around a strong wrist, digging his nails into skin as he holds on. "Clark, put me down!"

Then, his eyes dart down, and Bruce knows the moment their gazes lock once again. "I can cross my legs whenever I please."

"I ain't seein' you opening them either."

He lays his hand down on Bruce's thigh again, subtly, carefully shifting his left foot to lean it against one of the teetering chair legs, a anchor just in case. And uses himself to keep Bruce's attention solely on him. "You hidin' somethin' from me now, pretty?" He leans in, presses his jaw and nuzzles it along a flushed cheek, "Don't r'member you keepin' them this hidden from me last night."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh?" He dips down to give Bruce's neck a kiss, right over where a bruise is black and purple now. "Always so cute when you're coy."

"You're within kicking distance."

"Can you even kick me?"

Then, Clark puts the chair back down, taking Bruce's momentary gasp of breath to spread his legs open, pulling him to the edge easily, swiftly, just before he shoves his hands on the underside of each thigh and hefts Bruce up with a few bounces for added effect.

"Nice and open. Was that so hard?"

"Shut up." Bruce wraps his arms around broad shoulders, tucking his face against sweaty skin. And doesn't pay mind to the small little hitches of his hips rubbing against the man.

...this is @bruciebatsyy asking from my main lol, i swear i'm not a rando, and now i'm just glad i immediately remembered to clarify that just in case😭

anyways i'm in a weird mood bc i have a bunch of exams this week and can't seem to stop myself from continuing to passively let my grades fall apart, and also have a new fandom hyperfixation that i've written 3.3k words for in about 24 hours (i'm a very slow writer, as you probably already could have guessed from the speed of i have borne hellfire updates💀), so ofc my brain's conclusion to this state of things is to start spawning new angst prompts, and given that no pack au has been perpetually making me insane since its inception, 2/? are related to it so far and i think you'd enjoy the rest anyways—

so unfortunately i am going to ask you to prepare for a metric fuck-ton of asks to appear in ur inbox over the next like, hour-to-week depending on how many i get through writing out in this one session

(jfc, i literally have been taking my meds i swear, but that sentence was way excessively run-on even compared to my usual, something really is wrong with me rn huh. ANYWAYS)

so, idea #1, drumroll please...

platonic hanahaki omegaverse AU!!!!

(which i am already imagining as one of the no pack 'verse spinoffs, but i am excited to see whether you'd approve of it)

basically i was reading a hanahaki fic in the aforementioned new fandom hyperfixation, realized i hadn't read one of those in quite a while before this one, and then quite literally had one of those like cartoon lightbulb-over-the-head flash-of-genius moments where i skipped the train of thought through all of the other associations and teleported straight to the last station of the line, which IS: hanahaki as a platonic, romantic, and/or any other kind of love there is thing in an omegaverse, where the kind of flower(s)/plant(s) that grow in your lungs is determined by what scent the person you love will enjoy, literally trying to adapt you to become more pleasing to them so that they'll love you back— and bruce, over the years, ends up accumulating a whole garden's worth of species in his chest, a bouquet that perfectly resembles a summation of each and every member of his family

of course, this requires a few tweaks to both your, like, prototype no pack au that spawns all the others, and the like "regular" hanahaki au concept, but i literally thought of this halfway through the 15-minute walk back to my hostel and immediately starting adjusting as necessary until i could get to my room and get my laptop out and now i am SO excited to tell you about it.

so, to make it work w no pack au: basically the one modification we need for my flower-choice au-intersecting twist to actually hit is for bruce to not be using scent blockers, so that at some point his kids can casually notice his scent changing, obliviously comment on how they like it better this way, cue angst about how they love the thing that's killing him much more easily than they've ever loved him etc etc. but i figure this isn't actually that hard— i'd just make it so that it's widely known that wearing blockers all the time is unhealthy to a point where bruce never would have been allowed by the people around him to start doing that in his own house, even if dick did act bothered by the entire existence of his scent when he was first adopted. BUT to keep that aspect of the whole denying-him-any-role-as-an-omega thing, we can say the kids have specifically blown up at him for (a) actively trying to put his base scent on them or (b) "projecting" his concern for them through his scent when something happens to them while he's around, bc those things remind them of what their parents used to do. but ofc in-universe it's most likely part of the culture for older very close friends or family members to do those things too anyways, so when the kids have been with him for awhile and assumed they're past the early stages of their relationship/have possibly forgotten it was something they ever stopped him from doing in the first place, they tend to take bruce fully abstaining from those things as a sign that he really doesn't feel as much emotion towards them as they would like him to, even though it's him just doing his best to be what he thinks they want him to be.

also, while (a) is probably not an unheard-of request from kids who go into foster type situations, etc., bruce actively learning to hold back his natural emotional pheromone responses for (b) might be considered an unreasonable boundary and too self-sacrificial of him even by most people in-universe, but the problem is that alfred has almost constantly worn a kind of blocker that mutes specifically the emotion-shifting-scent-patterns bc it was considered "proper" for "the help" to do that to make themselves minimally attention-catching without fully hiding their scent-presence, so bruce ends up seeing it as a reasonable thing for a pseudo-parent to do. (wow, i even managed to work in minor alfred's-parenting slander, do i get an occa bingo?) and he notices that dick (as a kid in the early days) responds well to having his baseline and happy/milder emotional scents around, bc otherwise he gets lonely, so instead of wearing the feeling-scent-blockers like alfred, he decides to learn/perfect the active suppression his feeling-scents at specific moments, so that dick(and the rest of his kids later, implied) gets the parts of bruce's scent he likes and isn't "forced to put up with" the scent of him being too proud, worried, disappointed, anything that can be interpreted as parental. (hmm, this also nicely sets up a long-running trend for some of the smaller fights he gets into with individual batkids along the line, because they all have different scent-reactions they associate with their individual parents to different degrees, so he learns which scents a new kid will tolerate in the early days and tailors his insane self-restraint to each of them individually, PLUS once there's enough kids they get to start misunderstanding why some kids get some scents and not others and it makes them jealous + makes them distrust ALL of his genuine emotions he does try to show them that little bit more... oh wait this entire thing is also basically just the scent version of the "jl learns that batman taught himself to subvocally purr" post you made a while ago...... oops?) <- and THAT was a whole tangent from what i originally meant to say abt him specifically learning to suppress his scent-reactions/emotions, which is that it would have been clocked as an unreasonable and even harmful ask of him by some of his friends, except that he truly just happened to be particularly isolated in those early batman days/early days w dick, bc this is too soon after his training for him to be reconciled w people he had to "move on from" during it, and just before his partnerships w jl people start, so by the time he makes/reconnects with friends again they think it's just how his scent works, or even if old friends do realize he's completely internally suppressing his emotion-scents somehow, they don't realize he's doing it FOR somebody (let alone the kids who seem to want more from him at this point) so they don't think to intervene to tell him that he shouldn't be policing his own truly instinctual bodily functions for the sake of not "inconveniencing" someone else.

<- and it took me until i was almost done with that entire paragraph to realize that this is also just a perfectly plausible tweak/addendum to regular no pack au to up/detail the angst even WITHOUT the hanahaki bit, so... that's fun, i guess? i'm a little proud of that, but anyways, speaking of the hanahaki of it all, let's get into that side of things:

so here, the main thing is that we want the hanahaki to be serious enough to actually affect bruce and therefore make him suffer, but also to persist throughout the entire timeline of him acquiring his kids without wearing him down enough to kill him, or even actually being noticeable enough for the kids or any close person to find out when one of them is living with him/they're in a good period of their relationship w him, and also for him to not need like noticeable accommodations that would be discovered in his stuff when he "died"/got lost in the timestream. BUT i realized that bruce's emotional/physical situation is actually, when you think about it, so fucking weird that i think it's possible to justify hanahaki as the classic "very serious disease that is very hard to hide and also fatal in its end stages, which tend to be reached within a few years" situation in this AU, and yet bruce specifically ends up with a low-level but multiple-people-at-once but also still discreet long-term chronic hanahaki situation— because let's be real, he's ALWAYS special. so for the physical specifics: the disease's usual progression starts with small petals/leaves/pieces etc, and the longer you go on loving someone unrequited, the bigger the plant in your lungs gets, the bigger the pieces you cough up, and eventually once everything gets too big you choke, right? but in bruce's case, a few years into fostering dick, he starts getting individual petals and leaves for the first time, and immediately starts mentally preparing for the full terminal progression. but as they fight more throughout dick's older teenage years, he makes it to coughing up small fully-formed buds, maybe also small saplings — but no further. small enough that he, with his insane pain tolerance, can withstand the urge to cough/choke/get them out during tough conversations until the other person (only dick, at this stage) storms off, and small enough that in the mouthpiece of the suit, he installs a sort of tubing system that only opens when an obstruction near/in his mouth and throat is detected, sucks up his small petals and buds and gets them into even smaller less recognizable pieces, and moves that remaining debris away into one of many hidden compartments that he can then empty periodically. specifically because it only has to deal with small pieces, the whole thing is small and inconspicuous enough to barely be noticeable from the outside, and the fact that it only engages when there's an obstruction means that on the rare occasion someone else might wear one of his suits, they should still only discover it in a situation where it was needed for something anyways, and then he can pass it off as just another one of his many regular insanely-thorough safety contingencies.

and as for WHY bruce in particular gets this weird rare plateauing form of hanahaki: well, probably by the time tim enters the picture, he's formed his best guess, which is that he's in a weird position of being ruthlessly objective and self-aware enough that even his own depression/self-hate never fully manage to convince him that his family doesn't care about him when there's evidence to the contrary for him to notice, whereas most people with the kind of unrequited-love-related mental health issues who are in a position to develop hanahaki don't usually have the objective self-awareness to realize that, so the disease has become known as always getting worse and worse because it follows their mental state/self perception even in cases of people whose affection is returned to different degrees by the objects of their hanahaki cases. so for regular people with long-term hanahaki-causing feelings of being unloved and no outside intervention, either your mental state spirals, your feeling of isolation and being unloved spirals, and the disease worsens to terminal illness, OR you're like, a person with depression who feels isolated and alone, but DOES recognize that you have people who care for you, and your feelings of isolation and lack of connection become a separate thing from the amount of love you feel you're getting, so your hanahaki heals naturally and you're just stuck with the regular mental illness. bruce's situation, where the people he loves are often ping-ponging between expressing some care and love for him AND hurting him or making it seem like they don't love him, AND his personal mental/emotional response in the long term acknowledges both of those things as they happen rather than focusing on accepting one as the truth, as many people's minds understandably would, results in this chronic thing: never fully healing, but not unstoppably progressing either.

and because there's essentially a limit on how big the individual plants for each person can grow when they're part of the family, bruce ends up being able to host an individual hanahaki infection for so many people, more than any recorded case because for most people who've felt unloved by more than one person at a time, those plants grow steadily as normal and take up X times more space than the infection for just one person at that stage, causing X times as much damage to the patient/their lung capacity in the same timespan so they die that much quicker. but not bruce — the batfam is so damn messy that half the time, his relationship with one of the kids worsening is directly caused by a good relationship with one of the other kids anyways, so those tend to cancel out. and then each of the individual people's plants caps out small enough that it's only around the time that damian shows up that the total obstruction to his lungs is reaching the size of a regular mid-stage hanahaki case.

and finally, for the omegaverse-specific bit, notice that i specified that bruce's infections stay in the early stages, so he gets petals, leaves, saplings, and at most buds. flowers don't properly release their scent until they bloom — so with multiple early-stage hanahaki infections stacked on top of each other, bruce basically maxes out on the physical impediment of the disease, while minimizing the one side effect that would otherwise be too suspiciously tuned to a specific person in his life, and also too constant to hide entirely from anybody he's living in the same house with.

and now that i've covered all this wildly excessive background/setup, the actual fic i'd want to write: the "boiling point" of the whole non-pack situation here would be a tipping point where his infections progress to the point where his flowers start blooming and his scent does change. and the kids still don't get it, because the idea of hanahaki would have crossed their mind if there was just one note added to his scent suddenly, and one person who really liked it — but instead, one day bruce suddenly has this whole floral-herbal layer to this scent, and all of them like it, sure, but to different degrees for different reasons, and none are like, obsessed. it's just different enough from what anybody could possibly know as the hanahaki disease presentation that they don't think to question the explanation of bruce randomly finding a particularly flattering cologne/perfume... except that with many/all of the infections suddenly progressing at once, it's an astonishingly short amount of time, no more than a couple weeks, before someone sees him succumb to it and finds out about the garden in his chest... and then the fallout/catharsis happens accordingly i have no specifics there

i'm inclined to say that the boiling point here is shortly after he comes back from the timestream—or maybe within like a year or two afterwards—when he gets in a fight with a teenaged damian, he runs off to one of his siblings' apartments to vent/sulk, and then lets one of his siblings scent him for the first time. the first person who gets to scent damian since he first came to gotham. and then he comes back to the manor, with that pack-family-claim on him... and after all these years, the piled-up rejections have finally become too much for bruce.

okay, this is truly ridiculously long at this point and also has taken me like an hour to write on it's own, so, uh, i hope you enjoyed lol, there will almost certainly be a part two

have a happy timezone occa🫶🏽

skies I feel the need to remind you we met on ao3 where this is your handle, of course I know who you are ☺️

There's this thing I encountered once on a long lost tumblr post on pinterest on hanahaki au, where it's seasonal, and I feel this would track for this au. I built on the idea for a now abandoned fic plan for an old fandom, so I'll be using that lore. Dear readers of this post if I say something that doesn't make sense please know there is a second ask in my inbox I have read on this so they might blend in my mind but I'll try not to.

Okay so seasonal hanahaki is exactly as it sounds. The spring season is when people are calling out of work, bets are placed on who's not coming into work this spring, it's scandalous and completely normalised all at once. Chronic hanahaki havers keep their plants all year long, they don't die come summer/autumn like those seasonally affected.

Bruce doesn't lose his plants. They stop growing, but sit in his lungs. They start small, then grow over time, so the point that it's seriously infiltrating Bruce's respiratory pathways is far in the future, when the entire family is established. The times of the year where most people lose their plants/have them extracted, come the end of spring, is when Bruce's stop growing until the season starts again.

Thus your point about Bruce's particular plateuing edition of the disease, sorted. There's only a few months out of the year where Bruce's relationships with his children can affect the flower's growth.

By the time Damian is in the picture Bruce has been stop-starting a disease most people speedrun for over a decade. His rationality stops him from getting sick at the same accelerated rate of normal hanahaki patients, so it's a slow, agonising progression over the years until he is at that point where his scent changes.

But hanahaki is seasonal, so it can't be that. Bruce must have just found a nice cologne. He smells better now, anyway, they shouldn't question it. Except Bruce can smell it on his belongings, can tell he's hit the 'moderate' progression stage of the disease, and everyone seems to be glad for it.

Maybe it's Clark, who finds him passed out of the floor. He has a keener nose, he can smell the specific chemicals of hanahaki flowers in Bruce's scent. Breaks his promise to not x-ray teammates without permission and finds the infestation filling Bruce's lungs. Outside of season. And he finally realises something is deeply, intrinsically wrong.

If you use this measurement tool (which you should), you'll likely get a bra size significantly larger than what you currently wear. This is not a mistake, this is because you have been wearing a bra that's too small for you the whole time.

"But I can't be a DD cup I've been wearing B cups my whole life!" yes you have and that's why your back hurts. Because that's the wrong size. Try the size the calculator actually tells you first, and then you can bitch about it if it doesn't work.

For the first: Hob saves Dream from Burgess

A Canvas For Revenge by Sam_Salami (3.6k): Hob Gadling is a man of devotion and of loyalty. While saving his oldest friend from Roderick Burgess, he takes his time to turn the Nightmare King's torturer into a a blood-offering with methods he learned in his youth.

thinking 'bout you by Kyra_Maximoff (3.9k): Hob takes a job at the old Burgess house, and comes across the one thing he wasn't expecting to find.

A Dark Familiar Stranger by PH03N1X_360 (4.2k): It’s a wonder how strangled a man can feel if he cannot breathe, but he cannot die. In which the lack of air in the cage causes Dream to hallucinate and Hob breaks his Stranger out of the Burgess Mansion.

A Smart Man by meblogname (4.5k): Hob hears of one Roderick Burgess and suspects that the old man might have some skeletons hidden in his closet... or his basement.

his heart, beneath the floorboards by imnotcryingipromise (5.2k): Lieutenant Robin Stone attends an end of war celebration at the Burgess mansion in hopes of forgetting his ghosts for an evening, unaware of the familiar face entrapped beneath the floorboards.

Provenance by MeridianGrimm (6k): Hob likes to keep an eye on the occult community, and when he spots a familiar ruby at a party in 1926, he decides to investigate.

Poker face by fellshish (6k): Hob gets invited to a super secret exclusive poker game. At the Burgess manor.

The Love in Waiting by imnotcryingipromise (6.8k): In which Hob Gadling attends a summoning at the behest of a lady friend and ends up with more than he bargained for.

a lucky break(out) by cuubism (9.8k): Hob acquires a familiar ruby at an antiquities sale. Said ruby summons something else into his home as well.

Dreams are Reality in Waiting by Lalaith_Quetzalli (10.3k): Hob is a simple man, a man of principles, of convictions, with a simple life… except for where said life has lasted for several centuries now, he’s met beings that are both older and more powerful than any god, and is married to one of them! So maybe his life isn’t simple at all. Still, he’s the kind of man whose word means something; even when the person he gave his word to clearly never expected him to remember it…

That Old Witch Sleep by im_not-Corrupted (11.6k): In 1916, Roderick Burgess, intending to summon and imprison the Angel of Death, accidentally summoned Dream of the Endless to his basement. Though this was not what he intended, he constructs a cage of glass and iron with the intention of gaining something for his efforts, if not his son. There is one problem, though: Dream of the Endless does not wake up.

Broken Glass by Aria_Lerendeair (12.5k): Ever since their missed meeting four months prior, Hob has been seeing his Stranger in his dreams - trapped behind endless walls of glass. Hob has steadily been breaking the walls down, but he doesn't know what any of it means, or what it is doing. Until he finds his Stranger able to see him, standing on the other side of a single pane of glass, where he is trapped. This leaves him with only one possible option and way forward - rescue!

A Different Kind of Burn by Ruby_Casablanca (14.1k): Wherein Hob dreams of war, Morpheus dreams of an escape from his prison, and over the span of many years, they fall into dreams that blur the lines between friendship and something more.

Bloodhound by Moorishflower (15.7k): In 1989, drunk and heartsore and stumbling home from the soon-to-be-destroyed White Horse, Hob Gadling -- world's most loyal hound -- comes across a familiar-looking ruby in a pawn shop window.

For Want of Caution by mayanpaw (20.6k): Hob Gadling was not by nature a cautious man but even he knew the value of keeping track of those who would be too… intrigued by his condition. In 1926, a chance conversation in a bar alerts Hob to the fact that Roderick Burgess has captured another immortal, one that sounds eerily similar to his friend.

This Rough Magic by Avelera (36.6k, unfinished): After the disastrous 1889 meeting, Hob Gadling turned to the occult to find a way to contact his stranger and apologize. Yet despite becoming a fairly adept occultist in the process, Hob ultimately lost his nerve and never cast a single spell to contact Dream. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the matter, when Hob's dabbling brought him to the attention of Roderick Burgess, who is now convinced that Hob is a fellow Magus, capable of convincing Dream to give Burgess the gift he gave to Hob all those centuries ago: immortality. Now, Hob must use wits, magic, and a great deal of charm to convince Roderick Burgess he is indeed an ancient, powerful Magus who wants nothing more than to help Burgess become immortal too, if he is to get himself and Dream out of Fawney Rig.

In Waking Dreams by cuubism (49.3k, unfinished): In 1389, Hob married a man in his dreams, a lover conjured only by his imagination -- or so he thought. Five hundred years later, a mysterious ransom letter has Hob questioning everything he knew about his dream husband, who coincidentally disappeared from his dreams seventy years ago. Several miles away, trapped in a glass bowl, said husband is really regretting letting his marriage be only a story in dreams.

The Uses of Adversity by MonstrousRegiment (65.8k): What led Hob Gadling — at the time known as Robert Stranger, because he’d been in a permanent state of pettiness from 1889 to about 1904 and now he was stuck with it — to the dank, cold, and dark basement of the Burgess house on March of 1957 was not so much coincidence or fate as it was curiosity.

he spends days in his nest. he’s so out of it and so weak that he can’t feed himself, can’t take medicine for his illness, can barely bring himself to go to the restroom the small times he actually needs to go. his inner omega is no help at all. it’s whining and crying for their pack. it tells him to rebuild his nest, maybe that’s why they haven’t come. or or maybe he could provide food for them and be useful so he can be rewarded for being good. and he gets so frustrated bc nothing he does works and why is he so bad. why does he keep doing this. why does everyone always go away why does he have to be so lonely all the time why can’t he ever be enough why why why

ughhhhhh and and and clark coming back from being off planet and being able to hear bruce’s heart makes him realize something is wrong. he goes to the manor and finds him dissociated, in a ruined nest. hes so flushed w a high fever, his cheeks lightly sunken in since he hasn’t eaten in how many days, and his bottom lip bitten raw whenever he experienced a really painful cramp.

clark accidentally raising his voice at bruce bc he’s so worried abt him and he’s saying “what happened? why didn’t u call anyone? how long have u been sick for? why didn’t u ask for help?? you should’ve called someone and it wouldn’t have gotten this bad!!!!” and he’s not even looking at bruce cause he’s scrambling around trying to gather things to lower his fever down. he doesn’t stop until he hears a sniffle and a whine. When he looks, he sees bruce looking at him, crying softly w shame written all over his face. and then AND THEN bruce bares his neck, tryna appease his alpha bc all he can process is that his alpha was gone, and now he’s here and the nest is a mess, and he’s a mess which must be the reason why his alpha is so mad at him. that he’s such a bad and terrible omega. he shouldn’t have let himself get sick, he shouldn’t have let himself go into heat w/o his alpha, etc. tears are falling down his face, his scent sours, and he’s whispering out sorry over n over again.

hehehe and clark’s heart literally shatters cuz omg bruce really is not feeling good. and he feels so bad too cause it feels like he just kicked a puppy. he rushes over to b and just wraps him in a hug, rubbing his wrist over bruce’s scent glands to cover him in his alpha’s scent. he pulls away to wipe bruce’s tears away n says that its ok, there’s nothing to be sorry for, that he’s sorry, alpha’s so sorry for yelling, alpha is gonna fix it. and clark tries so hard to hold back his own tears cuz he’s a bit of a crybaby when it comes to his mate being in pain and hurt bc of his words UGHHHJ.

and bruce just collapses in his arms, tryna rub his face in clark’s neck and sink into his skin. while he tries to do that, a cramp begins to emerge n he feels so nauseous that he whines again. he grabs clark’s hand and places it over his stomach n says “alpha, i don’t feel good.”

clark shushes him again and says it’s okay, alpha’s gonna make it all better, alpha will take care of you