Some fanfic tonight because I am DESPERATELY tired of editing.
* * *
Bruce–known as Bryson–Wayne surveyed his employees in the R&D division with exasperation. Joy Connors was a sharp woman, in her fifties, personable and kind–she was in charge of the beauty and hygiene departments and oversaw nearly a hundred employees. Carla Li–barely thirty with a Doctorate in chemical engineering– ran the specialty pharmaceutical department underneath her, with nearly twenty people reporting.
Both women were looking at Ms. Wayne as though the poor dear just needed to go lay down for a little while.
“Mr. Wayne wants us to what?” Joy asked, surprised.
“Women’s health, Ms. Connors. Mr. Wayne feels that there are not nearly enough painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs made particularly for women. There is so much we don’t know about the menstrual process. You do realize that a woman’s cramps can be more painful than a heart attack, don’t you? And that the protocol for addressing a woman with painful menstruation hasn’t changed since the thirties, right?”
“Oh!” Carla said, excited. “I saw that on Samantha Bee! That’s true!”
Bryson Wayne nodded. “Yes. Yes it is.”
“But it seems to me that it’s a big fuss about nothing,” Connors snapped. “Women’s products don’t sell. Everyone knows that!”
“Well I understand that those pot blueberries for hot flashes do pretty good,” Li confessed. “I mean, my mom, menopause? Now there’s a thing we should research and develop. How come we’ve got five kinds of boner pills out there, but something to kill a specific kind of pain or discomfort in women is completely ignored.”
“Right!” Bruce cried, because finally somebody was getting it. “This is the gap in our research that Mr. Wayne wants to address!”
“Why?” Li asked, arching a perfectly groomed black eyebrow. “Seriously. Who put him up to it? Is he seeing someone?”
Bruce fought a sob. “I did,” he said, hating the irony. “It was one of the caveats of me taking over while he went to explore the water possibilities in the Sahara.”
“So how would you like us to address this?” Connors asked, her eyebrows up in doubt.
“I would like you to hire a ten person team to look into the science, and one person to specialize in marketing,” Bruce said. And then, feeling foolish because it needed to be said. “Please make the team 80% women. I mean, don’t discourage any male geniuses invested in the project, but I don’t care what his credentials look like, if you so much as see one of those assholes roll their eyes, they get blackballed from Wayne Industries for life!”
God, his lady parts hurt. He needed his own motrin and a nice warm cup of coffee. And some chocolate. And to curl up in a ball and die.
But he was going to settle for doing his part to make things right, dammit! He really was.
* **
The cramps had settled down a little by the time he got home, taking the recently repaired specialty elevator instead of the car so he could shower and put on sweats before he even walked through the front door.
Things had been “leaking” all day. He’d walked through his day fighting the urge to push his pad in from the back and fidget with the tampon that was currently scrubbing his vaginal walls raw.
He was pretty sure that there should have been more female mass murderers at this point in history. He wanted to become one.
But after his shower–and some cookies and a heating pad–he took some Motrin and went back down to work out in the gym, doing everything he’d do as a man just using smaller weights. He didn’t think the bulkier muscles would work on his lighter frame–right now speed and agility were his strengths and he would play to them.
He was in the middle of giving the sand bag a workout when Clark flew in, standing behind the bag to hold it.
“Good day?” he asked, then grunted as Bruce leveled a roundhouse kick at it. “So, no.”
“Cramps are better,” he muttered, hitting the bag with some fast and furious jabs.
“That’s good.”
“We’re working on a better cramp relief in R&D.” And hook and hook and jab and jab.
“Well done.”
“The women acted like I was crazy just asking.” Jab jab jab jab.
“They had to be tougher than the guys to get there,” Clarke reminded him. “That’s some damage to overcome.”
“I still want to kill someone.” Wham! Wham! Wham! “In fact–” Kick! “If I didn’t know any better–” Hit! Pound! Pummel! “I’d say I was horny!”
Full stop.
Oh my God.
“Really?” He asked himself.
“Really?” Clarke asked him.
Bruce was so relieved to pinpoint the source of his moodiness he almost cried.
“YES! Oh my God, I could fuck a tree right now!” He stopped and–swear to God–blushed. “I mean, you know. A tree.” Still not any better. He leaned his head against the bag. “God, Clark. I just… you know…”
Clark–still in his uniform–leaned around the bag.
And whispered a suggestion in his ear.
Bruce straightened up. “That’s true,” he said.
Clark blushed. “I mean, if you don’t want to. Your lady parts are sore and–“
Bruce shook his head. “No–no. I want to. I so want to. I’m just… you know. Surprised I didn’t think about it. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t been there before.” Although Bruce went there more often, with Clark. “There’s nothing going on in that, uhm, department right now. I mean, for one thing, I eat like a flea. No food to process. But seriously–you, uh…wanna?”
Clark was nodding furiously. “Oh my God, do I wanna.”
Bruce wiped his sweaty forehead on his shoulder. “Let me shower and, uhm, prepare.” Finally, a reason not to throw all of the tampons into a giant incinerator for the sake of women everywhere.
“I’ll be upstairs, also showered,” Clark said, smiling prettily. “It’s, an, erm, date.”
And it was. It was a bare skin to bare skin, thrillingly invasive date with Clark’s cock in Bruce’s ass. Lovely orgasm after orgasm washed over Bruce, and he pounded the bed as Clark fucked him from behind. Oh, damn. This was the most amazing plan ever. Sex! Sex that gave him endorphins and worked out frustrations! Wonderful, amazing, healing sex!
His final orgasm rocked him and he collapsed, mindful of his sore breasts, grateful that Clark rolled off immediately, careful not to squash him on the bed.
“Good?” Clark asked, panting with his own climax.
“Dreamy,” Bruce mumbled. “Here–let me get dressed. Then we can cuddle.”
Normally, he’d cuddle naked. But… well. Leaking.
God. So inconvenient.
Clark grunted as Bruce threw his pajama clad body on top, then ran his hand down the contour of Bruce’s much curvier behind.
“How was it for you?” he asked curiously. “I personally missed my prostate, but, you know. Everything else was pretty sensitive, so that was good.”
Clark looked at him candidly. “I… I miss the shape of you in my hands,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t know how to put it. It’s a small price to pay for having you warm and safe in my bed, but…”
Bruce sighed. “It’s not normal.”
“No.”
“And it will never feel normal.”
Clark kissed his temple. “Not for you.”
Bruce’s sigh seemed to tarnish their afterglow, and Clark, in an effort to get him to smile, said, “Hey–at least your not pregnant.”
Bruce laughed a little, and then curled up against his great lover’s side and fell asleep.
But something about what Clark said must have stuck with him.
Because he dreamed about their child. Clark’s blue eyes, Bruce’s nose, Clark’s irrepressible smile. God. Bruce had failed as a father so many times–but with Clark, maybe, he could manage. Maybe with their son or daughter, he could not bury the poor child under expectations, under worry, under the weight of his other life.
There was a sort of hope with that, even in the dream, until a jagged flash of pain ripped through Bruce’s abdomen, and the dream changed. He dreamt that he was invaded by an alien, consumed, destroyed from within by something that didn’t belong there and was ripping its way out.
He woke up screaming, thrashing on the bed in the throes of an agony that seemed to be devouring him whole.
“Clark!” he cried out, afraid and disoriented. “Clark, what’s happening!”
“Sh!” Clark pushed him back into the bed and wiped the hair off his forehead. “You’re burning up. And your face is… is changing.” His fingers rasped against stubble on Bruce’s jaw. “Baby,” he said, sounding afraid, “I think you’re changing back.”
“Oh.” Bruce was rocked by another terrible pain, and suddenly that dream, that painful, sweet, forbidden dream was ripped out of him by force. “I’ll never have your baby,” he said, letting go of a thing he’d never known he’d wanted.
Clark grimaced and kissed his forehead again. Bruce saw his eyes, red-rimmed, and his worry line etched deep in his forehead. “Oh Bruce. You couldn’t have survived like this, not even for our child. Diana’s on her way, love. We’ll bring you back on the other side.”
Bruce couldn’t help the tears, not from pain, but from the dream. “I”m sorry,” he said. “I”m sorry I”m like this. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to hold on for that. I’m so sorry.”
Clark rocked him, his arms the haven Bruce had never known he’d needed. “No sorry,” he rasped. “No room for sorry. Live through this. Live through this, beloved. Never be sorry you did what you had to do to live.”
Another pain slammed through him, ripping him in two.
Bruce screamed again, and concentrated on living.
