Chapter Text
Real talk: Clark definitely hadn’t expected to lose that fight.
He’d become accustomed to always being the bigger guy, y’know? He was so used to just being able to use his size as a weapon in itself - it never really occurred to him that bigger didn’t always mean better, or stronger.
His downfall in this particular instance had been his lack of agility. Campbell Eliot was small, by Clark’s standards, but the dude was fucking quick, man. He was quick, and sneaky, and it was bullshit.
He was searching Luke’s freezer for an ice pack - or, like…peas or something - when he heard the front door slam.
He didn’t even have to look up to know it was Grizz. He could practically hear him fuming from here.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw him storm right past the kitchen in his fury, and Clark smirked, shaking his head fondly without saying a word to redirect his friend, because Grizz was a smart guy - he’d figure it out. He just needed a second.
(He wasn’t always the clearest of thinkers when he was angry, you see. His fatal flaw was his temper).
“Clark!” Grizz yelled after a few more seconds of searching some other corner of the massive home.
“Here, bro,” Clark called back, finally finding a bag of frozen fruit that would just have to do and closing the door to the freezer as he stepped back, holding the bag against his bloody nose.
He leaned his hip against the island and waited patiently until Grizz came storming into the kitchen, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared.
“Morning,” Clark grinned, the cocky expression marred by his fucked up face and the obstruction of the fruit bag.
“The fuck was that?!” Grizz demanded, bypassing the greeting altogether, “What the hell were you thinking?!”
“You needed back-up!” Clark countered, gesturing toward the unscathed boy across from him with the bag of mango chunks (overrated fruit, in his opinion, but Luke sucked that way).
Grizz spread his arms in a gesture of confusion, “What are you talking about - I had it under control!”
“He called you a - “
“I know what he said, Clark - he’s an asshole. There’s no sense in fucking losing it every time Campbell’s an asshole, dude. That’s who he is!”
Clark shifted, his hands dropping to his sides, “I know, but…”
“But…?” Grizz prompted shortly.
Here was another thing about Clark:
Clark was fucking weird about Grizz. Like, batshit fucking crazy kind of weird. A level of weird that he’d never really reached when it came to Gwen, and fuck if that hadn’t been the most confusing thing he’d ever dealt with in his entire like, because he had loved Gwen.
But Grizz was like…
It was fucking Grizz.
People could say whatever the fuck they wanted about Clark - hell, even about Jason or Luke, to a reasonable extent - but when they went in on Grizz, even just the tiniest bit, even the most insignificant, off-handed dickish remark, Clark couldn’t fucking stand it.
No one shit on Grizz.
Especially not about this.
“I’m not down with homophilia, dude,” Clark explained lamely.
Grizz almost cracked, then - the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly as he fought back a smile, “Homophobia.”
“What?”
“It’s…nevermind,” he shook his head, his hands resting on his hips as he took a deep breath, his earlier rage slowly ebbing away, “I appreciate that, but you can’t wail of someone every time they’re a dick about it.”
“Why not? Somebody fucking should.”
“Look at your face.”
“My face is fine.”
Grizz stepped forward with a sigh and unceremoniously reached up to poke and prod at Clark’s bruised nose.
Clark immediately flinched away from the sharp, unwelcome pain, “Ow - what the fuck?!”
Grizz rolled his eyes, “It’s probably broken.”
“So you figured you’d poke at it?!”
“I was checking it!”
“You’re a dick.”
“And you’re an idiot - call it even.”
Clark glared at Grizz, and in doing so realized that Grizz was really fucking close to him, and it was really hard to stay mad at him when he was standing that close.
See? Fucking weird.
Grizz reached down to take the mangos from Clark’s grasp and pulled out a stool, instructing Clark to sit so that he could clean him up a bit.
“My hero,” Clark teased with a grin.
“Shut up.”
Clark did as he was told, watching while Grizz grabbed a cloth and ran it under warm water, “Love you, bro,” he muttered.
Grizz chuckled, “Love you, too.”
Clark could tell that Grizz was just humouring him - saying I love you in the way the four of them always did. Casually, without any real conviction behind it. They always meant it, sure, but…
The problem was that Clark really meant it.