Request fic: DC

[icarus_chained]

For rai_daydreamer.

Title:  Warmth
Rating:  PG
Fandom:  DC
Characters/Pairings:  Bruce/Clark
Summary:  It was a ratty old thing, that bathrobe. Hardly a gift worthy of princes.
Wordcount:  396
 

It was a ratty old thing, that bathrobe, of indeterminate colour, threadbare and all but falling to pieces. Clark loved it. It was one of the first presents his mother had sent him after he moved to Metropolis for the first time, long before he'd met Bruce, before he'd even managed to become true friends with Lois and Jimmy. Back then, it had been thick and fluffy and light green, and if he'd ever needed heat in the mornings, it would have been perfect. Of course, he'd tried to explain to his mother that he didn't exactly need warmth, but she'd just looked at him with one of those motherly smiles that meant you didn't know half so much as you thought you did.

It made him smile, to think of that expression. He understood better now, after everything he'd been through. Sometimes, the warmth we need isn't physical, but the kind that comes from knowing someone cares enough about you to send you something warm and soft in a strange new city.

It wasn't much now, of course. The green was faded past recognition, the pockets long gone, the belt little more than a string to hold it closed. Or not, as the case may be. It wasn't exactly a flattering garment, or a gift worthy of princes. But he'd had to give it, had to share that warmth that only a mother knows how to give, had to give Bruce something of that precious knowledge.

And for some reason, seeing Bruce wearing it, seeing his lover's hands move over the faded cloth, clever fingers picking at the loose threads, his blue eyes soft and wet and so shyly delighted at the gift, at the warmth it signified ... it moved Clark so deeply that he thought his heart might burst. Bruce Wayne, with all his riches, and this one gift of a second-hand bathrobe could make him look like that, like a child who'd never received anything like it in his life, or a man who'd forgotten long ago what it felt like.

It moved him beyond words, so when Bruce looked up, his arms wrapped around himself, pressing the robe close, Clark could only shake his head and move to embrace him, to hold him close, and share all the warmth he knew how to give.

Enough, he hoped, that neither of them need ever feel cold again.