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“It’s not a big deal, Bruce. It’s really not.”
“That’s because you aren’t the pregnant one.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Yes,” Bruce glowered from the entrance of their closet, his dress shirt hanging open around his growing stomach. “It’s exactly true. You haven’t the faintest idea of what it means to be an omega let alone how difficult it is to be a pregnant, male, omega.”
“You’re right,” Clark massaged the back of his neck, his lips pursing, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Good,” Bruce snorted, turning on his heel to disappear deeper into the chaos that had become their clothes. “I’m glad we could sort that out.”
“We could just go shopping.”
“Right—an hour before the gala. That’s a wonderful plan.”
“How did you not think of this before—” Bruce shot a venomous look over one shoulder and Clark stopped, his face flushing, “I mean, you’re Batman. You think of everything.”
“I’m also human, Clark. And pregnant. My memory has gone to shit. I forgot about the goddamn gala up until this morning and I’ve been in meetings all day at the Tower. I’ve not had time to rush off and make sure my suit still fit. Christ—” his voice went muffled as a string of curses bubbled out of the shadows, “That’s it. There’s nothing else.”
“Would it really be so bad if they knew?”
“Yes, yes it would. I’m not ready yet. I planned on telling the media about my pregnancy after we announced our engagement to prevent any scandals. But now—now we’re—”
The closet got deathly quiet far too quickly and Clark stiffened, alarm making him scent the air for any distress Bruce might be letting off. He stepped nearer, risked peering into the closet and found Bruce sitting crisscross applesauce on the carpeting amidst a pile of suit jackets and ties. Wrinkling dress shirts and expensive leather belts lay like empty husks in a semi-circle around him.
“Bruce?”
“I’m—I’m too old for this shit, Clark.”
Bruce’s voice sounded tight and his control on the emotions Clark had sensed the moment he’d gotten home from work, were just under the surface. Clark didn’t think it would take much for the man to break. Not really.
Perhaps that was what Bruce needed.
They were just entering their fifth month of pregnancy and for all accounts, Bruce hadn’t acted like the stereotypical pregnant omega in the least. He’d kept on top of his work, benched as the Bat or not, went to meetings, and acted as if nothing was amiss in the least. Morning sickness? A minor hiccup. Bruce doubled down on anti-acids and disappeared for lengthier bathroom visits but didn’t complain. He lost a whole pants-size in the first month from his lack of appetite alone.
Exhaustion, hormones, and weakness? Bruce had handled far worse as the Bat and refused help more than he spent time taking care of himself. It was strange to see Bruce look so small sitting in the bottom of their closet, cuddling his slightly rounded stomach and looking like he was going to burst into tears.
It was—good actually. Clark felt relieved.
Though he would never, ever, tell Bruce that.
“Babe, you’re not too old.”
“Really—” Bruce snorted, and it came out watery, “Look at me. I have gray hair at my temples. I was contemplating if menopause might hit earlier for me than expected before this little—this little—surprise.”
“I’ll admit, she was a surprise. But you said yourself last week how excited you are for her. You spent two and a half hours laying out the nursery for me, in finite detail. If that’s not excitement, then I don’t know what is.”
“I’ve never been pregnant before.”
“I know.”
“It’s—not what I expected.”
“How do you mean?”
Bruce shrugged a shoulder, swiping discreetly at his face and Clark pretended not to notice. But it made every instinct he had rear to attention. He wanted to lean down and pick Bruce up, take him to bed and lavish him with soft words and kisses. He wanted to erase the melancholy from his mate’s face and make him feel loved and warm again. Happy.
But that wouldn’t help Bruce’s crumbling sense of self or his need to prove how independent and unaffected he was by this. He was a man that fought stridently against his class and all that entailed. Clark didn’t blame him in the least. They’d spent years side by side, marching for equal rights, and campaigning against a bigotry that was hundreds of years in the making. Despite the small victories, the caste system that dictated their way of life was still intact, albeit, looser than it had ever been before.
That didn’t mean it made any of this easier for Bruce.
Bruce liked control. Being pregnant—meant there was a significant loss of it.
And neither of them could do anything about that.
“What about you wear one of my suits?”
“I’ll swim in it.”
Clark shrugged, tugging out one of the more fitted tuxedos Bruce had insisted he get a few years back. He hardly ever wore it. But it would do in a pinch. “Alfred could make a few quick alterations.”
“Clark…” Bruce’s eyes were on his lap, but Clark could hear how fast his pulse was ticking against the thin skin of his neck and wrists, “I don’t want to go.”
Clark watched Bruce, waited for a beat, then nodded slowly. “Alright. I’ll let Alfred know.”
“Okay,” Bruce’s voice was tight again and small. He looked bone-tired and Clark ached at the sight of it.
“Just give me a minute and then I’ll come back and clean this up.”
“No—” Bruce blinked up, the gray of his eyes goose feather soft and watery. “I did it. I’ll clean it up.”
“I don’t mind—”
“No.”
Clark clamped his mouth closed, stepped back out of the closet and fought every instinct he had to leave Bruce alone. He went downstairs and told Alfred about the change of plans, asking for the old butler to call the proper people to let them know Bruce was sick and wouldn’t be attending. People would be disappointed, sure. Bruce Wayne was supposed to be a keynote speaker at their event. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
When Clark got to the top of the landing and stopped at their bedroom door, he could hear the stifled sounds of crying. He could hear the ragged intake of breaths and the grit of teeth as the sobs tore out of Bruce—with consent or not.
It paralyzed him.
Bruce was never one to cry. Ever.
He withheld until there was no way to any longer and despite being pregnant, Clark had seen the man stridently upkeep that tradition. Until now.
Clark slipped into their bedroom unheard, walked back across the bedroom, around discarded dress shoes and a stack of books that Bruce had left on interdimensional travel, and then found Bruce exactly where he’d left him. Sitting on the floor, crying almost soundlessly, with both arms wrapped tightly about his middle as if to keep himself from falling apart.
“Bruce—”
Bruce jerked, a pained whine slipping past the seam of his mouth as he stiffened from crown to toes. Clark watched him try to rein it back in. And he tried to let him. He really did. But in the end—Clark could only see his best friend crying pitifully in the bottom of their closet. He could only see his mate, carrying their baby, looking horrifically weary and in need of help.
He broke rules. Silent ones that Bruce always demanded they follow. Clark broke the rules by kneeling in front of Bruce and cupping cheeks that had scruff to smooth away tears from dark circles and bags. Bruce nuzzled into Clark’s hands, his chest rising and falling too fast, his hands shaking when he brought them up and tried to grab onto Clark. Not to push him away, but to bring him closer. To grab on tighter.
Clark sagged with relief.
He brushed cheeks with Bruce, getting his own face smeared with tears and murmuring soft words of nonsense. Bruce went pliant at the words, leaning heavily into Clark as Clark helped his mate to his feet and toted him out of the closet. Bruce was still small for being so far along. The doctor even said so, but it was pleasant to see the bump on his stomach. It was comforting to see that despite being small, their child was still growing, and Bruce was at least physically, doing well. Half-Kryptonian child or not.
Clark got Bruce to the bathroom and sat him on the countertop. Bruce made a noise of protest but then went soft and quiet again when Clark rubbed cheeks with him. Their bond felt strong in the hollow chill of the bathroom and impossibly warm. Clark wiped Bruce’s face and neck down with a rag, smoothing away the tears and leaving behind splotchy red skin. When Clark started the hot water for a bath, Bruce’s tears had stopped, and he was watching him silently.
But they still said nothing to one another. Despite being a journalist and making his living off of his ability to create words, Clark often found that with Bruce, words were not as well received as actions were. Bruce preferred silence when others would like different.
That much remained true when Clark lifted Bruce and stripped him the rest of the way out of his clothes. Bruce swayed into him in response, nuzzling and purring, the sound louder than it might have normally been any other day in the granite bathroom. Clark helped him into the tub, then sat on the floor beside him just to remain. Bruce’s purring persisted steadily.
Quietly.
Bruce purred for only very specific circumstances for very specific reasons. And it was never loud. Ever. That hardly mattered. Clark treasured the sound of it just then because it was a sound of contentment. It meant that Bruce was pleased with his efforts to calm him.
“Good?”
Bruce cracked open one eye, his mouth tipping into a weary smile, “Yes.”
Clark watched Bruce soak until the water went cold and then he carefully helped Bruce out of the tub. Any other day, Bruce might have begun to complain about being manhandled or worse—babied. Bruce didn’t care for it. He’d never been one to ask for massages or sick days or soft words. It wasn’t who he was.
But Bruce wasn’t shying away when Clark curled around him in bed, placing an open palm over Bruce’s stomach just to feel the rise and fall of his breaths above the baby. Bruce didn’t complain when Clark traced Kryptonian symbols into his ribs and then down to his belly button.
And he certainly didn’t complain when Clark’s hands quickly became his mouth.
“Clark,” Bruce hummed, peering down at Clark through heavy eyelids as Clark laved kisses over the jut of Bruce’s hipbones.
“Yes?”
“Don’t stop.”
Clark smiled and then obeyed. He didn’t stop until Bruce was a quivering mess of nerves and actively trying to tear his hair out. Then he crawled back up beside Bruce and nuzzled into his mate’s neck to bask in the afterglow. Bruce always smelled like flowers and spice after sex, as if he’d rolled around in a field of daisies. He’d told Bruce something of the like once and Bruce had insisted Clark was making it up.
Clark wasn’t.
Bruce smelled—heavenly. Warm and soft and his.
“That tickles,” Bruce murmured.
“What—this?” Clark whispered, wary of breaking the film that had settled over them. The bedroom was dark, only the outlines of their bodies visible and the dainty hue of bathroom light peeking out beneath the door. They’d not bothered to get dressed after Bruce’s bath and pressed skin to skin, Clark could imagine they were lying in a meadow or maybe by the ponds near the Kent farm he’d used to sneak off to and skinny dip in.
“Yes.”
“I should shave.”
“I like the scruff,” Bruce hummed, brushing his cheek roughly against Clark’s, lightly biting at Clark’s chin.
“Yes, you do appear to like it,” Clark laughed, pressing a kiss to the corner of Bruce’s mouth, then the other, before kissing him more squarely on the mouth. Bruce opened for him with a sigh, their tongues lazily brushing and hands roaming.
“This is so much better than a gala.”
“Mhm,” Clark agreed, aware that Bruce was purring again, very softly in the back of his throat. It was lulling to Clark’s senses and making him drowsy. He wished Bruce would purr like that every night before bed.
“I love you,” Clark framed Bruce’s face in his hands, brushing a thumb softly over one cheekbone, “I love you both.”
Bruce’s eyes were like abalone, all-knowing and depthless. Not an ounce of guarding or pretense in them. Clark could feel just how much Bruce meant the words back to him before the other man even opened his mouth to reply. “And we love you. Fiercely.”
They fell asleep sometime after. Clark wasn’t sure when, but they’d not bothered to get dressed. Early in the morning, Clark woke to Bruce between his legs with a wicked grin and a far more talented mouth than his own. Any trace of the weary pregnant omega from the night before was gone.
Bruce had resealed the seams and shored up his weak points. It was what he did. It was how he coped. By eradicating the weakness and eliminating the threats, Bruce made sure that no one could use those weaknesses against him. Still, Clark sensed that Bruce kept closer in the morning, lingered longer over kisses, and was overall more interested in keeping Clark at his side.
Clark didn’t mention the night before or that it had been years since he’d seen Bruce cry. He didn’t mention any of it. He’d be there the next time Bruce felt he couldn’t take on the world one more minute. And the next. And the next.