Bruce isn't a dependent person. He couldn't afford to be with the way his life had started and the path he had subsequently taken after. He didn't need the touch and affection of others, didn't rely on it. He couldn't depend on someone staying around for more than a week at most. So, watching Clark scrabble to get dressed and stumble out of the ship, mumbling something about Martha, shouldn't hurt as much as it does. He shouldn't reach out for Clark the way he does, attempt to plead for him to come back, but Bruce doesn't seem to be able to detach himself currently. 

So, he protests until the door slams shut and once he's alone, he curls in on himself and tries to ignore the emotional pain in favor of finding a way to dim the physical pain. The ship, while he was sure it was nothing but a foreign machine, was nothing like any man-made device. He could feel it watching him. The way it reacted to his clear suffering felt less like a robot's reaction and more like a machine with the mind of a human placed inside of it. It was like Clark's ancestors had put their emotions inside of their technology. The ship was doing its best to accommodate, the tone of the voice speaking to him shifting from sterile and passive to empathetic and present. It was trying, with everything it'd collected from, Bruce assumes, previous instances of this happening, to find a way to soothe Bruce. 

A particularly unpleasant cramp hits him and he feels like he's going to vomit. He lurches forward on his hands and knees, fighting his hardest to stand so that he can get at least within the proximity of the bathroom, only to watch as a deeper bowl, almost like a sink, opens up at the edge of the pool in front of where he's propped up. He gags, feeling like his stomach is about to escape through his throat as tears prick at the corners of his eyes. 

That's when he hears it, a quiet soothing voice talking to him.

"Do you need me to contact Kal-El, Bruce?" The voice asks and, if he hadn't been absolutely exhausted, he would've set himself into a fighting stance.

Instead, he peers up to see the ship's screen with a face on it that looks eerily familiar. It's a woman who's watching with concern, mouth turned down into a frown, eyes fully of worry. She looks like she'd be stern, but kind, brunette hair pinned up in a bun, piercing blue eyes analyzing Bruce. 

"Who are you?" he huffs out, feeling as if this is it, he's finally lost his mind.

He watches as the woman on the screen smiles sweetly.

"I am Lara, Kal-El's mother."

It takes everything in Clark not to turn around, to pull Bruce over and do everything in his power to make sure the man's okay, but fear keeps him moving. 

Clark's felt it before, mostly when their backs are to one another in a fight or he watches as Bruce's body collides with some surface that he knows it couldn't handle. Though, that's a slightly different feeling. It wasn't him hurting Bruce. This feeling that looms over him, eats away at him, was his fear of being the one breaking those fragile bones. Bruce was resilient and strong in his own right. He'd shown himself to be when he'd killed Clark, but Bruce isn't Batman right now. He isn't being protected by some suit; he doesn't have the clearest mind. Hell, he's trusting Clark currently, which tells Clark all he needs to know. 

So, he keeps going until he lands on his mother's porch. She swings the door open, large smile on her face until she sees the expression on his. She tugs him inside and immediately rushes off to find him something to drink.

"Tell me what happened," she says, placing a snack down in front of him.

"I need to get back, I just -," he looks around the living room as if that held the answers to his problems, "Bruce is in pain and I can help, but he's completely out of it and I need his permission to do so."

He'd thought over what he'd say to his mom all the way over despite his mind racing with thoughts of the man he'd just abandoned in an alien ship. He'd thought distinctly about how to keep out the part where his help involves physically getting into Bruce's space. Something she didn't need to know.

Something Bruce hated. 

That's another reason why he's so sure that Bruce isn't all there. He can't be. The kiss, while Bruce had encouraged it, felt wrong. Of course he's going to say yes to just about anything when he's in that kind of pain and Clark can reduce it in some way. It wasn't fair to him. Though, Clark wasn't sure how long he could stand by and watch the man suffer.

His mom looks at him as if she's concocting a way to tell him he's being stupid without hurting his feelings. Despite knowing barely anything about the situation from Clark's description, she already has worked up some kind of answer to his problems. She lets out a sigh, sitting down her cup to take a really good look at him and he knows he's about to get a lecture. 

"Clark, you've told me stories of this man in the most dangerous situations. Every single time, he's aware enough to be the one to pull himself out of them. You think someone who could be aware enough not to hurt people when he's being brainwashed, calculate risk when the world is falling apart around him, and is able kill his best friend to save him from doing something he'll regret, wouldn't have enough awareness to make a sound decision on whether or not he wants to give consent?" 

Well, he hadn't thought about it like that.

She watches him for a moment, observing as he toils away at the decision before speaking again.

"What's really stopping you?" Her voice is soft, sweet and he feels like he can tell her anything and she won't look at him as if he's a monster.

"I might hurt him, Ma," and for the first time, he can feel the weight that's been placed squarely on his shoulders. 

This wasn't some civilian casualty that was out of his control, this was Bruce. His best friend Bruce who, despite making questionable decisions, did them because he wanted to do the right thing. No matter what it cost him in the end, he wasn't doing it with malicious intent. If Clark failed, he'd be taking that person away from a city that so desperately needed him. He wasn't a fellow Kryptonian, he might not be able to survive being handled like one. 

"Clark," she looks around as if she's trying to gather up the most gentle words she could find to deliver to her boneheaded son, "he's survived a lot worse than you being a little rough with him." 

Clark knew that. Somewhere in his dim brain, he knew that. He'd witnessed that too many times to count, that was the last thing he'd seen before he suddenly woke up one day to find that he'd died. 

"You're afraid you won't be able to handle the guilt." She informs him -

and when she puts it like that, yeah. He won't know if he'll ever be able to forgive himself if he accidentally hurts Bruce. 

"Would you ever make him feel guilty for not being able to stop the people who took you off this Earth?" she continues, and honestly, he feels like she'd prepared for this. 

She already knew all of the answers.

"Never." Clark grits out. 

"Why?" 

"He was trying to do the right thing." Clark sighs out.

"Do you think he would be mad at you for trying to help? To do what's right?" Martha asks, straightening out her apron that's somehow pristine despite the fact that he can smell food wafting from the kitchen.

"No, but that's his problem. He doesn't seem to understand that he's human." He begins to rant only to press his lips together in annoyance.

"But you do and he has faith in you to keep him safe. My sweet Clark would never intentionally hurt anyone," she says as she pops up, "now stop moping, that poor boy needs food in his stomach." 

Bruce is vaguely aware that Clark's back. He can't really pinpoint where he is or what he's doing, but he can smell his mother's cooking on him, hear the squeak of his shoes as he paces the hall, feel the man overthinking. He eventually wanders into the same room as Bruce and places down a paper bag before popping it open. He pulls out the plastic containers and starts fixing what is undoubtedly Bruce's plate as he contemplates how much he should put on it.

"Welcome back, Kal-El." The ship chimes and Clark pauses in his ministrations, eyes glued to the floor as he takes in the foreign voice.

It takes him a moment, but his eyes eventually find their way onto the screen and he looks as if he's frozen in time as his mother smiles down at him. He sits there for a moment before turning back to where he's fixing Bruce's plate.

"...preferred the robot voice..." Bruce thinks he hears him grumble as he watches the tips of his ears turn pink.

He places the plate next to Bruce's head before bringing his hands down rub at Bruce's sides. 

"Are you feeling well enough to sit up?" He asks and Bruce only nods, wobbling ever so slightly as he turns around to stare at the contents.

His appetite is somehow still there despite the fact that the ship opened a sick bowl every time he even eyed the edge of the pool. This time, Martha's prepared pork chops and baked macaroni and the sound his stomach makes would be embarrassing if Clark wasn't too busy staring up at his mother.

The ship must be able to sense Clark's palpable confusion, because it begins to answer questions he's clearly too perplexed to answer.

"I have made alterations in order to make your mate more comfortable." The ship hums.

Clark just seems even more confused as he peers over at Bruce.

"Lara Lor-van, biological mother of Kal-El, is very similar to a loved one that seemed comforting to your mate, Bruce Wayne." The ship's original voice chimes from somewhere as the image of Lara finally leaves the screen. 

Bruce pauses his eating, appetite somehow vanishing. What had the thing done to know what would be comforting to Bruce or not besides scanning him to look for physical discomfort?

"Explain." Clark commands and they both watch as the ship pulls up three different images. 

Martha Kent. Lara Lor-van. Martha Wayne. 

"When taking into account the process, a motherly figure seemed the most appropriate."

The ship doesn't go into further detail, but it doesn't really need to. He wants to be annoyed, upset, maybe even crawl back into his shell and hide. 'Cause what the hell did this damned ship know about him or his family? 

...but It'd worked...

He couldn't deny that it'd worked. Clark had been gone an hour and had popped back in after Bruce had all but passed out, but that hour was hell. He'd missed the worst of it. She'd talked him through it like he was a sick child she was taking care of. 

Clark commands the ship to take down the images and to notify him of the changes next time and the ship agrees to do so. Once he's sure that the image of his mother is gone, he slips out of his clothes and sloshes his way through the relieving liquid to get to Bruce.

Bruce is surprised when Clark pulls him over. With the way Clark had stumbled off of the ship, Bruce thought maybe he'd regretted what they were doing. Maybe he'd just come back and pretend they hadn't. Though, instead, his eyes ask a question. Bruce realizes they're asking for permission as they take in his lips before darting back up to his eyes. 

Bruce has analyzed the situation. Understands that this is essential for him to get back to where he needs to be, has made peace with the decision despite knowing it may complicate his life later. It was a necessary risk. It was the equivalent of Bruce Wayne kissing a couple of promiscuous, rich bachelorettes to keep up appearances. 

So, he tilts his chin up, giving a silent affirmative, and allows himself to be consumed by Clark. The kisses are a lot different than the first ones they shared. The first ones felt like Clark was doing what he thought was necessary, but eventually turned into him being curious, exploratory. These current ones felt like he wasn't really all there, like he was trying to keep himself from getting too distracted.

Bruce should be fine with that. He just needed this contact to feel better, but maybe it's the flirt of a bachelor, maybe it's the competitive nature of a vigilante, maybe it's just a man wanting to feel like he has some kind of control, but Bruce doesn't like it. He doesn't like the tender touch Clark's handling him with, mind remembering the grip he'd had on him just an hour prior. 

So, he kisses back like he's spread out on some lush bed, drunk off of expensive bourbon and completely nude with some irrefutably handsome man looking up at him like he's the hottest thing he's ever laid his eyes on. He kisses Clark like he's trying to prove him right, leave a lasting impression. Filthy as he can manage. There is spit dripping down his chin by the time he's done and Clark's pupils are blown as if he's entranced. 

Bruce knows he should slow down, keep it chaste and sweet. Somewhere, someone in his head is screaming it at the top of their lungs because all things can do are escalate from here, but he's already decided he likes that look on Clark. Likes the way he huffs and puffs for air, mind completely forgetting that he doesn't need it because he's too busy focusing on trying to get his mouth back on Bruce. 

Temporarily, he has to admit, the plan is forgotten.