Chapter Text
“So, do you top?”
Clark paused with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. Blinked. Put his fork down and adjusted his glasses.
“I’m sorry?” he asked politely.
Across the table, his date, Tristan, eyed him with idle half-interest. “I said, do you top?” he asked again.
Oh. So he had just asked that in the middle of a crowded restaurant, forty-five minutes into their first date, like that was a totally normal thing to ask someone you’d just met. In public. Clark had been hoping he’d misheard, but that had always been a very distant hope. Clark rarely misheard anything, after all.
There was nothing in Tristan’s eyes to indicate that it wasn’t a genuine question. Clark had thought, looking at his profile on the app, that he had very nice eyes: warm, friendly, and a rich chocolate brown. It had been half the reason he’d swiped right in the first place, since the rest of the guy’s profile had given him very little to go off except “works in tech” and “enjoys movies” and “has friends”. This last one was mainly evident from his second picture, posed with the requisite two to five people at a blandly expensive-looking bar, all of whom were either slightly less conventionally attractive or, giving them the benefit of the doubt, caught at an especially unflattering angle.
Clark himself had included a similar picture in his own profile: him posed with Jimmy and Lois at a work event, the night Jimmy had told him he was, “Looking slick tonight, Clark!” and insisted on a picture of him and Lois to commemorate. Overhearing this, Cat had snatched the camera from Jimmy’s hands and told him to get in the picture too, for god’s sake – and Jimmy, ever eager to please her, had for once jumped in without hesitation.
It was a nice picture of all of them, Clark thought. He’d asked both of their permission to use it. Jimmy said of course Clark could use the picture, he was just happy that Clark was getting back out there. Lois had agreed, faintly amused by Clark’s mild but clear discomfort with the question — “But for god’s sake, don’t mention straight up that it’s your ex-wife in the picture. That’s a red flag for sure,” she’d told him sternly. Clark had decided to take her advice on that one.
Still, all their advice (sweet from Jimmy; appreciated but still slightly excruciating from Lois, mostly because of the whole ex-wife thing) hadn’t prepared Clark for this situation. He glanced around nervously. The sweet elderly couple at the next table was shooting them a look now, and Clark couldn’t tell if it was idle curiosity or chastisement. It didn’t really matter which; he could feel heat creeping over his cheeks anyway. “I don’t think— Why are you asking that now?”
Tristan gave an insouciant shrug and smiled, halfway to a leer. “Well, why do you think?”
Clark could hazard a guess. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Um, well…”
“I mean, we’re both men,” Tristan went on. “We don’t have to beat around the bush, right?”
“I’m not sure what my gender has to do with it,” Clark said truthfully.
Tristan laughed. “I don’t know why you’re being so precious about this. Isn’t it normal to ask these days?”
Was it? Clark was, admittedly, pretty out of touch with what was ‘normal’ for dating these days, having only re-entered the dating pool about three months ago after being married for most of the last ten years. And sure, perhaps he was a little more old-fashioned than most, so his ‘normal’ was a little more on the conservative side. But until tonight, he’d been comfortably convinced that it was ‘normal’ not to talk openly about your sex life with a near stranger in the middle of a busy restaurant, in easy earshot of many people for whom Clark’s sexual preferences were none of their business.
They’d been texting polite small-talk at each other for two whole days before this, at which point Clark had frustratedly decided that getting a read on someone over the messaging feature of a dating app was next to impossible and just asked straight up if he wanted to grab dinner after work – nothing too fancy or expensive, but it was nice, cozy. At no point before then had Tristan asked about his preferences in the bedroom.
This could have been a text, was his point.
Before he could say any of that, though, Tristan was already continuing, a little impatiently: “Look, we both know why we’re here, right? Like, it’s kinda cute that you wanted to keep things classy by eating out first, I guess. But we’re both here for the same thing, right?”
Clark glanced back at the couple. They were very deliberately not looking in their direction, and also very definitely not eating their food. “Um,” he said.
“I’m a bottom, if that wasn’t obvious,” Tristan went on. “I figured you were a top, but some daddy types like to bottom. I don’t like to assume anymore. Ass out of you and me, et cetera et cetera. So, you’re…”
He stared at Clark expectantly, clearly waiting for an answer. Clark felt his jaw clench. His ma had taught him to be polite when trying to make a good impression – and that went double on a date, she’d told him sternly before sending him off in the truck to pick up Lana for prom. Being polite, to Clark, meant graciously bowing to conversational expectation; it also meant not airing one’s dirty laundry in public.
The two edicts warred briefly, before the former emerged reluctantly victorious. He suppressed a grimace and, under his breath, mumbled, “I, uh, yeah. Either way around is fine.”
Tristan’s mouth twisted. “You’re vers? Actually vers? Or do you really just bottom but say you’re vers?”
Clark had absolutely no idea how to answer that. “Um…no?” He could feel the eyes of that nice elderly couple on him again, now embarrassingly tinged with sympathy. Desperate to change the subject, he cast about for anything he remembered about Tristan from the three days of shallow conversation they’d had by text and the not-even-an-hour of dull-but-inoffensive small talk they’d managed while waiting for their food, and settled on, “So. What’s the most recent movie you saw? Any good?”
It was, admittedly, not Clark’s best conversational hook. Tristan didn’t seem to mind, immediately launching into a diatribe about a movie Clark had never heard of. It had been shown at Cannes, Clark learned, and was profoundly underrated. This led seamlessly into a diatribe about Hitchcock (who was ‘the only real auteur, when you get down to it’) which in turn led into another diatribe about the state of modern cinema. Said state was, apparently, terrible. Tristan had an unusually strong hatred of Timothée Chalamet, who he felt was symptomatic of some kind of larger problem in Hollywood. Clark, who had been making the appropriate listening noises at the right times to appear at least politely interested, couldn’t quite bring himself to ask him what he meant by that.
By the end of their date, Clark was exhausted, which in a way was honestly impressive. It took a lot to tire Superman out, after all. As they left the restaurant, Tristan shot him a sly grin and asked, “So, you can host, right?”
“Host?” said Clark, a little perplexed before the meaning took, and—
Ah. Tristan really thought this date had gone well. Well enough to…
Huh.
He looked down at Tristan, at his warm brown eyes and his perfect teeth, the broad shoulders and lean build and crisp shirt.
He struggled to remember why he’d ever found Tristan attractive.
He offered Tristan his most politely apologetic smile. “Ah, no. Sorry, but that’s not on the cards tonight.”
“Oh,” Tristan said. Irritation flashed across his face. “After all that?”
“Sorry,” Clark said again, smile fixed firmly in place.
Tristan’s mouth twisted, eyebrows creasing. He pressed his lips together in unsuppressed displeasure, then said, “Well okay, no sex. But I came all the way here, so maybe just BJs?”
Clark’s smile dropped.
“I think it’s over for me, B,” Clark said miserably, a few days later.
Sitting beside him in the Watchtower’s computer room, Bruce didn’t even look away from the screen, focused on running some kind of system check. Clark honestly hadn’t paid that much attention to his explanation beyond ‘computer stuff’. “That’s an unusually melodramatic response, from you.”
“Yeah, well,” Clark grumbled, slumping a little in his seat. “You asked how my date went. That’s your answer.”
“That bad, huh?”
“That bad,” he confirmed.
Bruce offered him a sympathetic grunt (which, from him, was a fairly effusive expression of comfort) and finally dragged his gaze from the screen, turning fully towards him. Clark might have felt bad about distracting him if he didn’t know Bruce would only let himself be distracted if he wanted to be. “How bad is that bad?”
Clark told him. Bruce’s expression didn’t change throughout his telling, at least not in a way that was noticeable through the cowl. When Clark finished, he pursed his lips.
“Hm. You’re right,” he said. “It is over for you.”
“Ha ha,” Clark said dryly. “But I mean—I’m not crazy, right? That’s just not normal to ask someone.”
“In a restaurant? No.”
Clark paused. The phrasing felt deliberate. “But not in general.”
“Let’s just say I don’t think you’re ready for Grindr and leave it at that.”
“You know, I did actually make an account there.”
“And?”
“I lasted about thirty minutes. The less said about those thirty minutes, the better.”
“I figured.” Bruce took a slow sip of his coffee. “And the others?”
“You want to know about my other dates?” Clark asked, a little surprised. “I honestly didn’t expect you to show an interest. We don’t normally talk about this stuff.” Even being so close. When he’d told Bruce he was marrying Lois, he’d received a clipped but, by Bruce’s standards, heartfelt congratulations, before they’d immediately moved on to a debrief. And since he’d mentioned a couple months back that he was going to try dating again, Bruce hadn’t brought it up once. “I mean, you never tell me about your dates with Selina.”
“That’s because we don’t have ‘dates’,” Bruce said. “She shows up, we have sex, she leaves. I assumed you didn’t want details,” which was…fair enough, actually. “But if you want to talk, I’m happy to listen.”
“Well…okay. Sure.” The idea of explaining his slightly pathetic love life to Bruce of all people was a little embarrassing. Bruce didn’t have these kinds of problems. He would have left that date with Tristan during the entrees rather than hanging around out of what had turned out to be a misplaced sense of politeness. In fact, Clark was pretty sure Bruce would never have ended up on a date with a Tristan in the first place.
But if Bruce really wanted to know…
He tipped his head back with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. “This most recent one was definitely the least successful, but I haven’t had a lot of luck with the others. The first date I went on…we went out for afternoon coffee. She barely looked up from her phone. Then she said she had another date to get to and left after an hour.”
“Hn. Not great. And the second?”
“Well…” He grimaced. “Better, I guess, but barely. Although not because of anything she did; she seemed perfectly nice. But it got pretty tiring trying to keep up a conversation. I guess it was first date nerves, but she could barely look at me.”
Bruce snorted. “More like you made her nervous.”
Clark frowned. “You think? I don’t think I did anything to make her nervous. I tried to be, you know, friendly.”
“I'm sure. But you can be intimidating when you want to be.”
“Clark Kent isn’t though,” he said. Wryly, he added, “And besides, you’re one to talk.”
Bruce shrugged. “I’ve never claimed not to be intimidating. As Dick would say, it’s my ‘thing’.”
“You’ve never been intimidated by me, though, have you?”
“Not since I saw you tear up at an insurance commercial.”
“It was a good commercial!” he protested, mostly to see Bruce laugh – just slightly, more a huff of air than a chuckle. Bruce’s real laughter was hard-won – even if it wasn’t quite as rare as some people thought it was. “Anyway, those were the first two. And the rest were…” Mostly forgettable, he wanted to say, but it felt too rude. Even if it was true. “They were…fine? Mostly nice. There just wasn’t a spark.”
Bruce hummed consideringly. He was wearing the cowl since they were on the Watchtower, but after a decade of friendship Clark could read him well enough to catch the pensive tilt of his mouth.
“You of all people shouldn’t be struggling with this,” he said eventually.
Clark grinned, as genuinely flattered as it was teasing. “Aww, B. Are you saying you think I’m a catch?”
Bruce didn’t deign to respond to that, just rolled his eyes and returned to his work, tip-tapping away at the keyboard once more. Clark settled back in his seat, content for the moment to watch him work. Even in silence, his presence was comforting familiarity, the stern line of his lightly stubbled jaw and the thin lips pressed together in concentration. Although it was hard to see much of Bruce under the Batman suit, covered with armor and his thick cloak, there was still a distinctly Bruce quality to the way he sat with rigid posture even while grimacing at the screen, the casual elegance of his movements. And for as many times as Clark had seen what lay beneath the cowl, it took no effort at all to picture the aristocratic nose, the strong brows, the intense focus in his piercing blue eyes.
As flattered as Clark was that Bruce thought he was a catch, he was pretty sure Bruce had him beat in that department.
A few more minutes passed in comfortable silence, interrupted by the tip-tapping of the keyboard. Then out of nowhere, Bruce said, “I'll set something up for you.”
Clark blinked. “Set something…you mean, you’ll set me up with someone? Bruce, I wasn’t asking— I mean, you don’t have to—”
“It’s no trouble,” Bruce said flatly. His mouth twisted. “Clearly the issue is your taste in partners. You must be a terrible judge of character to end up in these situations.”
The unspoken but strongly implied, Clearly the issue is them and not you, took the sting out of the insult. Still, Clark protested, “Hey, it’s hard to get a read on people without meeting them!”
“Hard for you, perhaps,” Bruce said. Before Clark could come up with a suitably sarcastic rebuttal, he went on, “Fortunately for you, anyone I recommend will have been vetted. By me.” He finished typing with a resolute tap of the enter key, eyes flickering towards Clark. “You’re welcome.”
“B…” Clark sighed. Once Bruce was set on a course of action, it was notoriously hard to dissuade him. And for some reason, he seemed set on this. “Fine, I guess it can’t hurt. Do you have someone in mind?”
“Yes. A friend.”
Clark’s eyebrows rose. “A friend?”
“I don’t know why you’re questioning that. I have friends.”
“Sure,” Clark agreed, “in the superhero set. But most of them are also my friends.”
“Not a hero.”
“Okay, but who—” Clark paused, as something occurred to him. "Wait. Is this someone you dated?”
Bruce, tellingly, said nothing.
“Oh my god,” said Clark, sitting up straight in mild alarm. “Seriously? You’re trying to set me with one of your exes—”
“There’s no need to act scandalized. Things between us ended years ago. We’re on good terms and keep in sporadic contact. And I happen to know she’s on the market.”
She. That narrowed the pool a little, but— “Just tell me it’s not Talia.”
The corner of Bruce’s mouth pulled up in amusement. “It’s not Talia.”
“Good,” Clark said, slumping back in his seat. “I don’t think Damian would want me as his stepdad.”
“Hn. Probably not. And besides, I wouldn’t set Clark Kent up with an assassin. The woman I’m thinking of is a civilian, and recently out of a divorce, just like you. I’ll see if she’s interested. If she’s not, I can think of several others who—”
“Who you’ve also dated,” Clark cut in dryly.
“...who I’ve also dated. Again, it was a long time ago.”
“Right.” Clark definitely felt some kind of emotion about Bruce passing his admittedly impressive collection of ex-flings onto Clark like hand-me-downs, but he couldn’t quite identify what that emotion was. “And you think she’ll be different.”
Bruce flashed him a smug smile. “Trust me, Clark,” he drawled. “You’ll like her.”
The really annoying thing was, Bruce was right.
“I’m Ronnie,” Clark’s blind date told him warmly, standing to shake his hand when he arrived five minutes late and deeply apologetic (flash floods had a way of not resolving on time for prior engagements, unfortunately). Her handshake was pleasantly firm. “Well, technically it’s Veronica, but everyone calls me Ronnie, so I’d love it if you did too. It’s Clark, right?”
She was beautiful, obviously, because everyone Bruce had dated was beautiful. Long, sleek red hair, tall and graceful, with a warm smile that made her eyes crinkle. She fit right in at the overpriced restaurant Bruce had picked for them with her elegant black dress. Clark immediately felt underdressed.
He pushed the feeling down. “Yes, that’s right! It’s nice to meet you, Ronnie…wait.” He paused, quickly going through his mental rolodex of Bruce Wayne’s exes. “Veronica…Vreeland?”
Her eyes widened. “The very same! Gosh, did Bruce tell you who I was?”
“He didn’t,” Clark replied. He gestured for her to take her seat and then slipped into his own opposite her. “I think he wanted it to be a surprise, even though it wouldn’t have hurt to have a name at least before coming here. But, well…” He smiled ruefully. “What can you do? It’s Bruce.”
Belatedly, he remembered that he didn’t know which version of Bruce Ronnie knew and felt a stab of awkwardness. But she just rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, it’s Bruce alright. What that man won’t tell you for no good reason could fill a damn library.” The line was delivered with enough wry fondness that it startled a laugh out of him, and she smiled, clearly pleased. “But you know my family name. Has Bruce mentioned me before?”
“Ah, no,” he said lightly. Bruce didn’t tell him much about his dating life, and Clark didn’t ask. And besides, from what he knew about the young Wayne heir’s courtship with Veronica Vreeland, it all happened long before they were close friends anyway. “I’m a reporter, actually. It’s my job to know these things.”
“A reporter! Are you…wait.” She brightened. “Do you perchance work for the Daily Planet?”
Clark felt his eyebrows rise. “I, uh…yes, I do. How did you…?”
“Clark Kent!” she exclaimed. “I knew you looked familiar. I adore your columns, you know. I was telling Bruce just the other day how much I…” Her face fell. “Oh. Ohhh, that bastard. That’s why he set this up isn’t it? He figured out my little writer crush and decided to ambush me with a blind date—”
“Crush?” Clark asked, raising an eyebrow.
Ronnie flushed and let out a self-conscious giggle. “Oh, don’t read into that, I’m not some crazed fangirl. It’s an expression! I write too, you see – nothing on your level of course, just a hobby. And I’ve taken to describing writers whose prose I admire ‘crushes’.” She smiled, rueful. “But, well…I may have also mentioned to Bruce how handsome you look in your reporter profile, so…you can read into it a little bit, I suppose.”
“Oh,” Clark said, surprised and definitely flattered. “Well, I’m honored. But I don’t think I hold a candle to you.”
Ronnie beamed.
From there, the dinner went as well as Bruce had probably predicted it would. Ronnie was a warm and spirited conversationalist. She claimed not to have much knowledge about politics (“I’m afraid most of my interests are far more frivolous,” she told him with a self-deprecating smile) but she was curious about Clark’s work and eager to hear about his takes on the major stories, asking a lot of insightful questions. When their food arrived, the conversation shifted. They talked about the food. They talked about travel, and the many exciting places Ronnie had gone. They talked about Ronnie’s writing projects. They talked about Bruce, Ronnie firing off anecdotes about when they’d been dating that had Clark snorting into his wine glass. And Ronnie seemed similarly entertained by Clark’s recounting of the few Bruce-related anecdotes Clark could safely share.
And they also talked about themselves. Ronnie mentioned her recent divorce with more embarrassment than pathos (“I’ve had three divorces now, Clark. Three! Honestly, I’m becoming a walking stereotype of a socialite, it’s mortifying—”) and Clark mentioned his (“Clearly I need to catch up: I’ve just had the one so far”). They commiserated. And Clark hadn’t had anyone to talk to about the divorce who’d been through it themselves, and it was…
It was nice. It was really nice, actually. Ronnie was excellent company, and Clark was forced to concede, reluctantly but with some relief, that Bruce had been right yet again about Clark wanting a thing he hadn’t thought he wanted. They chatted mostly aimlessly through three courses and a mug each of hot chocolate with plenty of marshmallows – instead of coffee, because Ronnie was too prone to insomnia to risk caffeine at night and Clark promised it wouldn’t be childish if they both had one, now would it?
By that point it was getting pretty late, so Clark offered to walk Ronnie to her car. She agreed, but when she found out Clark had arrived by public transport, she insisted on dropping him off at the ferry.
It was only when they reached the ferry that the jovial mood changed. Ronnie quietly shut off the engine and turned to Clark, looking suddenly pensive.
“Everything okay?” Clark asked, frowning.
She let out a soft breath. “Yeah. Yeah, everything’s okay. I just…I had a really nice time tonight, Clark.”
“Me too,” Clark said honestly, smiling. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from tonight, but I haven’t had such pleasant company in a while.”
“Oh,” she breathed, “I… I’m glad.”
“Forgive me for saying it,” he said gently, “but you don’t look very glad.” Now he was really starting to worry. “Ronnie, if you’re not feeling well, or—or if I’ve done something to offend—”
“God no,” she said with an incredulous huff. “You’ve been a perfect gentleman. I’m just…”
She chewed on her lip for a second, studying him. Clark tried his best not to look too concerned. Eventually she took a deep breath and said, “Okay, screw it, I’m just going to be straight with you. What do you want out of this?”
Clark blinked. “This? You mean you and me.”
She sighed. “Yeah, you and me. I— Look, I know we just met tonight, and all the advice for women in their thirties going on first dates is, for god’s sake don’t come on too strong. But…” She smiled then, a little melancholic. “Well, the thing is, I’m not young anymore. I’m nearly forty, and I’ve had more failed flings than I care to count. I don’t have the free time to spend on someone who isn’t interested in serious.”
“Ronnie, I…” He swallowed. “No, it’s fine. I get it.” After all, hadn’t those same thoughts been circling in his own head after the divorce? It wasn’t that he was unhappy. He had a wonderful family, wonderful friends, and a purpose. But that wasn’t the same as having his someone.
He’d thought Lois had been his someone. He’d thought they’d be forever. Then things had started to fall apart, and she drifted further and further away, and no matter how he tried to hold the broken pieces together it had all just…crumbled. And then it was Lois in their kitchen, head in her hands, saying, “I think I need a break,” and then that break turned into a separation, and then lawyers were called and that was that. That future Clark had been so sure of, slipped finally out of his grasp. For good.
“I get it,” he said again, more quietly. “You want someone who’s on the same page. That’s…that’s smart.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you understand.” She laid a hand on Clark’s arm, looked up into his eyes, and Clark had to fight not to look away. “Even if it’s early to say it, I really like you, Clark. More than I expected to. I could really see this going somewhere serious in the long run. It doesn’t need to be now, or even anytime soon, but… Can you see this going somewhere, eventually? And, more importantly…would you want it to?”
Her smile was quiet, wry, and a little hopeful. Clark considered her. She was warm, charming, and beautiful. He’d really enjoyed talking to her. They had common interests. And on top of that, she liked him, had found something in him worth chasing after, enough to put herself out there like that.
There was a bravery to that, one Clark had sometimes lacked. One he could admire. And Clark—
Clark couldn’t bring himself to say yes.