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Clark put his arm around Bruce’s shoulders, taking a sip of beer from his free hand. He could see the dark spot on Clark’s jeans from droplets of condensation that had fallen from the too-still bottle. His smile was just slightly too wide and toothy to be considered fully human, and his glasses sat askew on his nose.
The tan Stetson he had insisted on wearing (“We’re going to the rodeo, Bruce. I don’t care if you think it’s a fashion crime, I’m wearing it.” For the record, Bruce did not think the Stetson with Clark’s bulky glasses was a so-called “fashion crime”. However, Bruce did think it was a crime for Clark to look that good in his Kansas cowboy wear—flannel, boots, and all. Bruce, having been raised in the metropolitan hell that was Gotham, thought no one should look good dressed as a cowboy. Or a cowgirl, for that matter. But then again, Bruce thought, when did Clark ever not look good?) covered most of his unruly curls, but a few slipped out in front, casting long shadows across Clark’s forehead.
Bruce thought about moving the curls away. It would help Clark see better, he told himself. Never mind the fact that Clark was, in fact, an alien who could see through walls regardless of how many carrots he forced himself to eat. His hand was almost there when Clark turned towards him, still wearing his lopsided grin. Bruce’s heart did a one-two before he schooled both his expression and heartbeat back to normal. Clark’s grin only grew wider. If it wasn’t so odd, it would almost be cute.
Bruce shook his head. Now wasn’t the time for that. He filed those thoughts away for later, in the too-full folder in his heart aptly labeled “Clark.” It was a stand-in for that other word, but Clark never seemed to mind, so Bruce was going to keep stuffing future thoughts in there until his heart burst. They were still working on that—on Bruce’s desperate need for compartmentalization, efficiency, and contingency plans. Not that there was ever a Plan B for this, anyway. In the end, if Bruce’s heart bursts and Clark isn’t there to pick up the pieces, Bruce wouldn't be sure those pieces would even be worth picking up.
Clark says to file those thoughts in his “Never Again” folder. He says those thoughts aren’t even worth filing in a folder, but Bruce tells him that he’s being crazy. Every thought goes in a folder, for safekeeping. Bruce’s thoughts were the only things that were truly his. (Clark’s been telling him for years now that there’s another thing that’s truly his, something—or someone, really—that has blue eyes and black hair and goes out to fight supervillains in Kryptonian armor every night because he’s an alien. Bruce isn’t there yet, can’t think about that right now. As soon as Clark says it, it gets filed in the “Clark — Future?” folder. It’s the smallest one, burrowed deep in his core. He’ll get around to looking through it someday. Maybe.) All the money in the world couldn’t pay to get his thoughts back. Bruce couldn’t afford to lose them.
And so his folders lived on.
Clark’s grip tightened around his shoulders. His brows furrowed, smile falling slightly. “Everything alright, B?” he asked in a low voice.
Bruce shifted in his seat and muttered, “You look stupid.”
Clark would know what he meant, even if Bruce had crossed his arms, looked sullen, and called him stupid. His gaze softened, and he pressed a kiss to Bruce’s temple.
“Thanks. I really appreciate that. Truly.” Bruce could tell he meant it to come out sarcastic, but it fell a little flat. Which was alright. What mattered was that Bruce was able to tell what Clark meant. (And he was. After years of communicating through glances across conference tables and misheard yells across battlefields, he and Clark had mastered their form of communication. Tone, or even the words it contained, hardly mattered anymore.) Bruce offered a small smile, a little less sulky now. (Not that he would ever admit to being something so childish as sullen, not even to Alfred, who has seen far more than his fair share of Bruce’s sulky moods.) Clark pecked his lips at superhuman speed, too quick for anyone without the reflexes of Batman to catch it, and went back to watching the event.
“You see those big barrels they’re bringing out in front, in the separate pen? They’re going to be doing—well, it’s called barrel racing, you can probably guess what they’ll be doing. The barrels are always set up in a clover pattern, which is really cool, and the riders compete for the fastest time maneuvering around them. It’s always been one of my favorite timed events,” Clark explained. Bruce let Clark’s voice wash over him, fading out the other chatter from the bleachers behind them.
He had gotten these tickets as a surprise for Clark’s birthday. Clark doesn’t look his true age, to Bruce’s displeasure. If he had to guess, Bruce would say it was because of a combination of insane Kryptonian genetics and the superpowered artificial suns Bruce installed in the Batcave. With both of them approaching the big four-oh but only Bruce looking like it, it’s safe to say he is regretting that decision. (Not really. Installing a few million-dollar artificial suns in the Batcave had been nothing. Looking a few years older than his partner was a tradeoff he was more than willing to make; Bruce would sacrifice his own life ten times over if it meant Clark would get a minute more to live. To see the sun.)
But—Clark’s birthday. The rodeo hadn’t come to the Gotham-Metropolis area for years, since before the Justice League had formed, but they had decided to return this year. For whatever reason that definitely did not involve any sponsorships by Wayne Enterprises. So of course Bruce had bought tickets to the rodeo. Tickets to an event seemed to be a pretty classic birthday gift, according to Bruce’s in-depth research (consisting of reading a few full-length Wikipedia articles), and the rodeo was a personal dream of Clark’s to attend since leaving Smallville.
Having full-time jobs in addition to their nightly activities (superhero or otherwise) never left much time for Bruce and Clark to go on real dates. Or normal ones, anyway. Clark has breathed life back into Bruce when his heart stopped beating, and Bruce has almost all of the world’s discovered kryptonite (and some of the undiscovered, too) stored in a secure bunker miles underneath the Earth’s surface, but they’ve never done dinner and a movie outside of the Manor, ignoring that disastrous double date with Lois and Selina. Bruce prefers not to think about that night.
So, now they were at the rodeo, Clark was smiling like a maniac, and Bruce was trying not to think about how his heart jumped into his throat every time Clark directed that smile towards him. It had been too long since Bruce had seen Clark smile like that, cheeks cherry red and all his teeth on display, and really, he couldn’t believe that Clark was smiling because of him. He didn’t deserve—
Right. The “Never Again” folder. He shifted in his seat again, careful not to jostle Clark’s arm around his shoulders. The rodeo volunteers had finally finished setting up the barrels and were counting down the minutes until the first contestant.
As for himself, Bruce wasn’t especially excited about the rodeo before he had gotten there; large crowds in cramped stadiums were never really up his alley. Thankfully, his sunglasses and lack of standard attire (which Clark never failed to poke fun at—“B, it’s a stakeout. You don’t need eight different types of batarangs.” And sometimes—“You’re meeting my parents! In absolutely no way is the dress code Armani!” Or once even—“You can’t seriously be thinking about wearing that in public? How am I supposed to focus when you’re—” Okay. You get the idea.) kept his identity relatively hidden. The disguise was no cowl and eye makeup, but it worked just enough for people’s eyes to lazily skip over him as they looked for friends and family in the crowd.
Now that he was here, though, Bruce was, to his great surprise, actually enjoying it. Sure, he didn’t grow up around the culture like Clark did, but being here, he saw the appeal (which definitely did not have anything to do with Clark in those jeans, no sir). He made a mental note to ask Clark to take him back to the farm and show him how to do “farm things.” Mostly because he wanted to learn more about what the “cowboy” lifestyle Clark had mentioned truly meant, but also partially because Bruce wanted to see his partner riding a horse around in his stupid Stetson, maybe even in his stupid flannel and stupid jeans. Sue him.
Clark was leaning forward, arm tightening slightly against Bruce’s shoulders. Bruce’s lips quirked up. Even with hand-wavey Kryptonian biology, how could Clark’s cheeks not hurt from smiling like that? The Joker, Bruce thought absentmindedly, would have to take notes.
“Bruce, look! They’re starting!” Clark leaned forward, eyes alight. Bruce didn’t really care all that much about the barrels or the horses or the tan Stetson that took up far too much space in that unnamed folder. What mattered was the warmth pressed into his side and the sound of Clark’s laugh, reckless and bright. That was enough.