Chapter Text
Bruce wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten here.
One minute, he was standing outside the circus tent in the rain, an umbrella in one hand and the boy’s shoulder in the other, and the next they were driving away from the courthouse where Bruce Wayne had officially been declared the guardian of a nine year-old Richard Grayson.
That wasn’t entirely true. The past two months hadn’t been as breezy as Bruce’s continuous state of shock would have him believe. There had been at least three conversations with Alfred about whether this had been a good idea, and how Bruce was being irrational and could not be responsible for a child, especially while doing what he did.
But Bruce couldn’t let go. Once the helpless feeling of horror had passed and the audience had scattered in a shrieking stampede, Bruce had waded his way through them to reach the fallen acrobats.
The way Dick had been kneeling between his parents’ bodies, heaving, overcome with shock and on the verge of screaming, had rattled his soul. It was one thing to know that others had gone through what he had and it was another to relive it from a third-person perspective.
It didn’t help that the boy was almost the exact same age Bruce had been when he’d watched his parents get shot and bleed out before him.
He couldn’t just leave him there, not when he knew too well how he was feeling.
Bruce looked over to the other side of the backseat, where Dick was slouched beneath the window, half his face in the collar of his button-up, puffy blue eyes fixed on his phone as his thumbs tapped at the game he’s been playing since last week.
They were now in the car, being driven back to the manor by Alfred, all three of them pretending they didn’t notice the people following them and hoping for a glimpse.
He should have gotten a car with tinted windows.
Dick must have sensed him staring, because he rolled his eyes up from the screen to meet Bruce’s gaze questioningly.
Now would probably be the time to say something. He hadn’t really discussed how they were going to proceed together now because, until the judge had banged his mallet, Dick had no concrete proof that Bruce had meant what he’d told him that night under the umbrella. That he would be safe and cared for, and that whoever had done this to his parents would be found. And he had been. Dick had been an immeasurable help in tracking down Tony Zucco and by extension Sal Maroni, who had been grappling for control in the wake of Carmine Falcone’s death. Whoever took over as the head of Gotham’s mafia after them had yet to make himself known.
It had been a while since he’d investigated something this close to the ground and with minor casualties, but taking on domestic terrorists like the Riddler and the Joker didn’t mean that the Batman had stopped caring about mob violence, especially when Zucco was a small fish compared to Maroni, Falcone and the Penguin.
It helped that Bruce had been personally invested in this case. What had yet to be discussed was what they were going to do about Dick, not just helping the Batman on a case, and now effectively being his kid.
The source of such investment was still watching him, curious and a little confused. He had to say something because this stretch of silent eye contact had already gone far beyond what most considered normal.
“How are you feeling?”
It was a stupid question. He knew exactly how Dick was feeling because he’d been there some twenty-odd years ago.
Dick shrugged, likely not seeing the point in claiming that he was fine or comfortable enough to express how he really felt. He supposed he ought to try retreading through what Alfred had done with him after the legal proceedings had finished giving him guardianship.
He tried talking again. “Today was a big day. Would you like to go anywhere specific for dinner?”
“I don’t know the places here,” he said quietly.
Right. Dick had been part of the circus and had spent his whole life roaming. It was going to be an unpleasant adjustment period when he enrolled in Bruce’s old school this autumn.
“I meant if you wanted a certain type of food,” Bruce emphasized. “You can pick anything you want.”
Dick’s interest was piqued. “Anything?”
“Within reason,” he said. “You’re not having ice cream before a hot meal.”
“Okay. Can we have Big Belly Burger?” Dick sat up a little, rubbing at his eye. “We used to get a meal after we did a show, and I always got the one with the hash browns and the egg.”
Bruce blinked at him, confused. “Egg? On a burger?”
“It’s good. I like it.”
He nodded then addressed Alfred. “Do you know where the nearest one is?”
“There should be a place right past the next gas station,” Alfred replied, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. Over the years, they had learned to communicate through looks alone, which helped during the days where Bruce felt too tired or too overstimulated to talk. He raised his brows at Alfred questioningly and Alfred nodded his approval before turning on the signal and shifting lanes to take them to the burger joint.
It had been an awkward handful of weeks to say the least, but having the approval of someone who had already gone through this from his position did help soothe the general hum of anxiety he’s been operating under since they’d brought Dick home.
Alfred still didn’t think that this was a good idea, but the ink was dry, and Bruce was now this boy’s only family. There was no going back from this, just like there had been none for Alfred himself when Bruce had been orphaned.
When they reached the Big Belly Burger, Alfred asked, “Would you like to dine in or order through the window, sir?”
Bruce hadn’t been in one of these places since he was a teenager, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had fast food, so it made no difference to him. He deferred to Dick. “What would you like?”
“Can we go inside?”
Alfred immediately complied, taking them into the parking-lot.
Once they’d been settled into a table, Bruce remembered why he hadn’t set food in a place like this in years. Everyone had gone oddly quiet and they made no effort to hide that they were watching them.
Bruce had been back in the news a lot lately, not just because of what the Riddler had exposed about his parents, but because of the baffled reaction everyone had had to him adopting Dick. The media shitstorm had the publicist that worked for Wayne Enterprises bugging him regularly to start doing more for the social aspect of the company and do an interview wherein he discussed their products, his ‘newfound’ sense of responsibility towards Gotham’s well-being and give some insight on his unconventional path to parenthood.
He really didn’t want to do any of that. He didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything. He’d had to deal with the bastard that orphaned Dick and the other open cases the Batman had on his desk courtesy of Gordon, along with the charitable efforts he had been trying to be more hands-on with as Bruce Wayne.
Alfred insisted that he needed to maintain a persona now, one that would help keep him separate from the Bat to avoid any suspicion and to rehabilitate his family’s legacy, as well as that of the company. He had been practicing behaving in more socially acceptable ways and going in to ‘work’ at the WE headquarters in Gotham, but it was a slow and emotionally exhausting process, especially when he was already worn out from patrol.
Keeping up appearances was also necessary now that he had someone he was responsible for. He didn’t want anyone bothering Dick when he started school, and he wanted him to develop more normally than Bruce himself had. The boy needed to have a social life, one packed enough to distract him from what his life had become, and he also needed to keep him so busy that he never snooped too much around the manor and got lost.
That had been one of the main reasons Alfred had pushed back against this. He had been worried that the boy would find out that Bruce wasn’t what he'd appeared to be and that he’d tell someone. But Dick had found the entrance to the cave behind the grandfather clock with swift ease, confronting Bruce before his security setup and declaring “I thought you were a serial killer,” with relief.
It was safe to say that Alfred was still not happy about this, but the cat was out of the bag—and Dick wasn’t stupid.
As Bruce watched Dick eat his yolky burger and stare ahead with haunted eyes, he knew that he wouldn’t tell anyone anything. It had been a big enough deal that he’d described Tony Zucco to him and not to the police when they had been taking his statement. That subtle expression of trust may not have meant much to anyone else, but it was important to him.
Alfred cleared his throat. “Have you given any thought to your discussion with the company publicist?”
“Yes,” he said quietly, cutting up his burger. In an effort to keep up appearances, Bruce had asked for a knife and fork with his food, and the reaction he had gotten from their waiter had been almost comical. They’d thankfully had a set on-hand in this place and here he was, eating a piled sandwich smothered in sauce like it was a cake.
“Who are you planning on giving your first official interview to and when?”
Bruce shrugged. “Was hoping she’d figure that out for me.”
“You need to have some agency in your own public perception, Estelle can’t manage everything as she works for the company, not for you specifically,” Alfred reminded him, and took a bite of his own burger, a simple combination full of red onions that gave Bruce indigestion just from looking at them. “I would suggest you start small for your first proper introduction to the public.”
“A small news outlet or a small interview?”
“The former won’t make much of an impact but the latter would be preferable.”
Bruce groaned internally.
“It is essential to building a public persona, you can’t keep putting it off forever.”
“I know,” he sighed. “I’m just anticipating how invasive and tedious it will be to sit with someone who wants to rake my parents over the coals.”
“Then pick someone from outside Gotham, they’ll have a far less invested approach to your background and not feel comfortable enough to demand answers from you,” Alfred suggested. “If anything, they’ll be grateful you chose them over someone local.”
That was a decent plan. He needed to do a cursory search on peripheral newspapers or sites focused more on celebrity gossip than current events. Though he knew that they employed some sharp-tongued sharks, the Daily Planet would be a safer bet than the Gotham Gazette.
After Dick had finished washing the sauce and yolk off his hands and face, they got him a soft-serve ice cream cone and headed back to the manor in relative silence. Bruce didn’t want to keep nudging him, as he knew that this little pitstop of a meal had been a retread of something he had regularly done with his parents, and being there without them for the first time had to have made their deaths sink in further.
When they entered the ground floor, Alfred headed off to see about something the WE publicist had contacted him about, and Dick lingered at the base of the main staircase, watching him.
“What is it?”
Dick wrapped his arms around himself, gaze on the floor between them. “What do I do now?”
“About what?”
He shrugged. “Everything.”
Bruce tried to keep a neutral face around people now, but he couldn’t help the uncomfortable grimace that emerged at that answer. What had kept Dick busy, so to speak, throughout the waiting period of uncertainty until he'd officially become Bruce Wayne’s ward was the solving of his parents' murder. Now that both those issues were out of the way, he wanted to know what he was supposed to do with himself.
It had taken over a decade for Bruce to figure out what to do with himself, and the feelings he'd had about his parents’ murder. He really wasn’t the best person to give advice on how to cope and mourn and move on with your life, even if he did know what he didn’t want Dick to do.
“Do you want a short answer or a long answer?”
“Short?” he asked, uncertain.
“You are going to keep going to the therapist and then she’ll tell us what you should do now,” he told him. “Do you understand?”
Dick shook his head.
Bruce had them skip the elevator and take the stairs up to Dick’s designated room, all the while he droned on about why he needed to continue therapy, what he needed to do for it to work and how it would inform what he did with himself as he entered society.
“Did it work for you?” Dick asked when they reached his door.
Bruce suddenly felt cornered. “I think so.”
Hand on the doorknob, Dick looked at the door and them back at him, something clearly on his mind that he didn’t know how to share.
“You can ask me anything you want,” Bruce offered.
In a small, uncomfortable voice, he asked, “Did they find who…who made you like me?”
That question felt like a jab to the gut. “They claim to have arrested him, but I was never certain that they had found the right guy.”
Dick seemed surprised. “Isn’t that wrong?”
“He wasn’t an innocent man by any means, but he might not have been guilty of that crime,” Bruce explained. “But we definitely got the right guy this time.”
Sighing through his nose, Dick went back to avoiding his gaze in favor of the floor. “I know.”
“Is there something else you want to talk about?”
He shrugged.
“I suppose you’ll tell me when you feel like it,” he mumbled, not really blaming him for that mentality. “I’ll see about you meeting the therapist today or tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he echoed, distracted.
Bruce didn’t know how to proceed now. He knew that the last thing he’d want in this scenario would be for someone to keep trying to get him to talk, and that any persistent pursuit would make the boy clam up even further. That wasn’t viable, not when they needed him to actually keep talking to a professional.
He really didn’t want to end up with another version of him, so he decided to withdraw for the day and leave Dick to the games he’d filled with his new phone with, at least until dinner. He might need to look into getting him a console, or even use that as encouragement if he did well at school.
Having nothing better to say than the usual parting offer of “If you need anything, just call me or Alfred,” Bruce left the hall and headed for the cave.
There he changed out of his formalwear and into one of the dark, baggy T-shirts he usually worked in, remaining barefoot and in his boxer-briefs to minimize any unnecessary discomfort. It didn’t help that it was hot down here now that it was the middle of June. Still, even when it was freezing, Bruce hated wearing trousers and socks and anything with a collar or sleeves. He didn’t want anything clinging to him, it always made him too aware of his skin, and he only benefitted from that sensation when he was in the Batsuit, where he needed to be hyper-alert.
He paced before his screens, all the available information on the Gotham mob, and Bruce could use the death of the Graysons as the thread that unraveled Maroni’s monopoly on the city now that Falcone was dead. If that was too hopeful and ambitious, he could at least use Zucco’s arrest for extortion and murder as the crack in the flooded wall for his boss, finding evidence for everything else he’d done for Maroni, which included flooding the city with Drop.
He just needed something good enough to force the hands of even the most corrupt higher-ups in the GCPD. Gordon may have been a good man who believed in his job, but everyone else was far less reliable, even his former partner Bullock had warranted a side-eye.
Bruce had managed to glean whispers of the drug popping up in worrying quantities in Metropolis and Star City. It was one thing for Gotham to fall victim to this poison and it was another for it to start infecting their surroundings. He needed to neutralize the problem before it spread even further and roped thousands more into its hanging grip.
While doing a cursory search for reports on the spread of the drug, Bruce found a new article from Metropolis’s Daily Planet. It was an amateur investigation on a rumored metahuman from Gotham, who was suspected to be the source of a newer drug. Bruce had pursued this rumor, but he’d never found consistent proof of such a thing, though he did get a few conflicting testimonies on the meta herself, who was reportedly green, made people lose their minds wherever she showed up, and left behind plant overgrowth in her wake.
The Planet’s article had dubbed the rumored figure Poison Ivy, compared her to an incarnation of Dionysus, and detailed the evidence the reporter had gathered to prove her existence. It also questioned why Gotham, which had always hosted more insidious crime and seemed inhospitable to the supernatural, now had its resident meta ‘supervillain’, theorizing that Superman’s arrival had scared many criminal metas into setting up shop in nearby cities who didn’t have superheroes.
Intrigued, Bruce scrolled up to the author’s name: Clark Kent.
He saved the article just in case the Batman needed to pay him a visit for further details. He rarely ventured outside his city, but if someone outside it had information on what was affecting both their turfs, then he could make an exception. All he had to do was cross the bridge over the harbor and pop into Metropolis for a night.
Bruce tended to keep up with surrounding and local news so he could find all possible clues for his cases, and he had read his fair share from the Planet, namely to oversee what crime had sailed the harbor into Gotham and vice versa. He couldn’t recall ever reading anything for this reporter before.
Bruce went onto Clark Kent’s profile on the Planet’s site and found most of his articles to be the standard newspaper fodder, current events, trending topics, interviews and interest pieces. This had to have been the first time he’d been given the chance to write something that hadn’t been chosen for him.
There was a locked, upcoming article on Clark’s page, the title declaring it to be an interview with Superman and a countdown to eighteen hours from now.
Superman had first showed up in the end of the last year, primarily as a blur that saved people from petty crimes and the odd robbery, only moving slow enough to be photographed and seen up close when the effort required interaction, such as when he had emptied a burning building or when he’d lifted a sinking megayacht out of the harbor and set it on the shore. After the positive reactions from people online and in the news, he started showing up more regularly, now dealing with all the odd occurrences that plagued Metropolis, and whatever else popped up across the country.
Bruce had yet to form a solid opinion on this…person. Anything with powers was a cause for concern, especially something that had a whole roster of them. He was odd in that regard compared to metahumans who typically had one power and, if they developed others, they tended to follow the same line of logic, like a speedster being able to phase through walls or generate electricity. Superman had a conflicting list of abilities, and that was what he’d showed the public so far.
Bruce’s theory was that Superman wasn’t a meta, or a demigod, or anything of this earth at all.
There had been some unpleasant prior interactions with aliens before, but Superman showed no signs of being malevolent…so far. He could be taking a two-faced approach to his interactions with the public, performing acts of heroism to lull them into a false sense of security. Bruce had seen enough politicians and shady businessmen do enough of that, and he wouldn’t be surprised if an alien this powerful shared their mentality.
Metropolis really wasn’t his designated problem the way Gotham was, but it didn’t hurt to remain informed, just in case he needed to interfere at any point.
He set his alarm for earlier than usual so he could read the interview once it unlocked and continued his daily hopping from security camera to security camera until night had fallen and he went out to patrol.
The next morning, Bruce had woken up from maybe four hours of sleep, knuckles smarting, a muscle pulled in his side, and hauled himself downstairs to have breakfast with Dick. Only when he’d dropped into the chair opposing his ward did he realize that he’d forgotten his phone and the alarm he’d set for the article had probably rung.
Beating him to the request, Alfred set a pile of newspapers down on the table between all their plates. “In a refreshing change of pace, the top story in the world today is not a tragedy or a scandal, but an interview.”
Oddly excited, Bruce separated the pile, scanning all the front pages for his target, all while playing dumb for Dick’s sake. “With whom?”
Alfred tapped the one behind the Gazette. “Our resident alien has officially made contact.”
The Daily Planet declared in big, bold serif letters that it alone held the first-ever interview with their newest hero, and with it came a picture of Superman hovering above a ledge against the night sky with his hands on his hips, the cape billowing behind him.
A quick scan of the breaking news had told him that Clark Kent had asked a mix of the standard questions found in interviews and a few out-of-left-field topics to flesh out the person before him, but there was no undercurrent of invasive curiosity or attempts to trip up his subject. Bruce couldn’t tell if this was because Clark had been grateful for the chance and didn’t want to bother a literal superpowered alien, or if he had no prying, probing questions for Superman beyond a few lighthearted requests for reassuring information.
An example of something different yet inoffensive was how he’d phrased asking about Superman’s appearance, wondering if it was a conscious decision and a ‘form we’re more comfortable with’ as a way to ask if the alien had a more inhuman true form. Superman had reportedly laughed, denied being a Lovecraftian entity and claimed that everyone from his home planet had been humanoid.
The rest of the information the reporter had managed to get out of him was brief but just as interesting. He had come from a planet called Krypton that had been destroyed, leaving him as its only known survivor, and it had orbited a red sun. Considering himself a refugee, Superman claimed that Earth was now his home and that he wanted to do what he could to help keep it safe.
There was a deliberate amount of mystery padding his answers though, which meant that a lot of information was probably left on the cutting room floor, either by Clark’s editor or by Superman’s request. That made this reporter the only person in the world who knew anything about this alien and could have a good idea on what he was really like.
It wasn’t his business yet, but Bruce couldn’t help being maddeningly curious about this entire scenario. They’d had meta heroes and criminals for centuries at this point, even if they tended to settle in some places more than others and millions could go their whole lives never seeing one. But having an alien just arrive and get to work as a superhero was significantly more fascinating.
His story was also a little too convenient as well, being the last of a species from a planet astronomers couldn’t pinpoint a location for anymore, and choosing a new home full of people significantly weaker than him…it just rubbed him the wrong way.
He needed to focus on Maroni’s fallout, and the meta Clark Kent had dubbed Poison Ivy, but perhaps Bruce needed some measure of escapism to not get overworked, burned out and start slacking in his cases. None of these people were going anywhere, so he could afford a slight distraction, especially if it was one that could provide him with information that would be useful in the long run.
When Bruce finished rereading the interview for the second time, he lowered the newspaper to find Dick watching him with big, interested eyes, for once devoid of their expected sadness. “What?”
Dick pointed to the paper. “Is the alien in the interview Superman?”
“Yes. Why?” Bruce handed him the newspaper. “You want to read it?”
Dick nodded enthusiastically as he snatched the paper, briefly unable to hold it properly in his small hands, and completely disappeared from view when he flapped it upright. It was a comical sight, a child in this day and age reading the morning paper, but he wasn’t going to complain, not when the topic had encouraged the boy to interact.
Bruce took the tablet Alfred usually carried off the edge of the table and searched for the top reactions to Superman’s first official interaction with the public, and the majority of opinions were positive, expressed the desire for a follow-up by flooding Clark Kent’s social media accounts with replies, and spawned discussions on his homeworld, theories on how it had perished and how his biology differed from that of a human’s.
Naturally, there were the skeptics and the agitators who tore the interview to shreds, questioned every answer Superman had given, agreeing with Bruce that the alien’s presence here was too convenient, if not worrisome, and some demanded that their government have a contingency against him in case he was the herald of an invasion.
Bruce noticed that Lex Luthor had liked a handful of these replies.
He had to stop scrolling once the positive and the negative reactions gave weigh to the unconcerned content from those who didn’t seem to care if the alien was as benevolent as he seemed or not, because they were too busy objectifying him.
Overwhelmed by the lewd discussions and the rough sketches from artists guessing what Superman looked like naked, Bruce had to click out and resume his breakfast.
“He is so cool,” Dick said, quiet yet excited. He flopped the top half of the paper down to talk to him, smiling enough to show his missing teeth. “He can breathe in outer space!”
Alfred returned to the breakfast nook, holding his espresso and its saucer, taking a sip as he peered at the article. “I wonder if he can breathe underwater as well.”
“Aww, the guy asking him questions forgot that one,” Dick said disappointedly, eyes now scanning the bottom half of the page. “He forgot lots of things.”
“Like what?” Bruce asked, eager to continue this development and keep Dick talking to them, hopefully this would warm him up for when he needed to meet the new shrink assigned to them.
“If he can run as fast as Max Mercury or fly to the moon or eat lava,” Dick rambled. “Or if he eats our food at all! What if he could eat stuff like metal and paper like a goat?”
“Goats don’t live off that stuff, they’re just capable of consuming it,” Bruce quietly.
“I know. We had animals in the circus.” Dick said then continued, “If he’s bulletproof does that mean nothing can hurt him? Like can he sleep under a train and be fine?”
The prospect of this being being truly invulnerable did make Bruce uncomfortable, not that Superman would share any weaknesses he had, be it for his own goals or as to not encourage those who had had negative reactions to his presence.
“These are all very good questions.” Bruce settled back with his milk tea, which had gone cold but was still drinkable, a habit Alfred had ingrained in him since he was Dick’s age. “I could ask them for you, if you want.”
Dick’s head snapped up from the paper, eyes bulging with excitement. “You can talk to Superman?”
If only. That accomplishment would probably take a while and a lot of careful investigating to figure out where this thing even went when he wasn’t on active duty. Clark Kent must have asked him that, there was no way he hadn’t thought about it.
“No, but I can talk to the reporter who interviewed him, see if he can do a second part with all the questions that didn’t get answered this time.”
Alfred quirked a curious brow at him. “I take it you have other reasons for seeking out this person?”
Bruce shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “You were saying I needed to start talking to people and reintroduce myself to the public. I could start with him.”
“You don’t want to start with someone local and more informed on who you are?”
He shook his head. “I think I need to do the opposite, just to limit any surprises.”
Alfred peered at the paper, scanning the page as Dick set it down by his plate for him. “It might rub people here the wrong way if you give your first interview to someone from the Gazette’s rival. But I suppose that would drum up more free press and drive people to read whatever this man gets out of you.”
“So, should I contact him now?”
Alfred continued reading as he sipped his coffee. “Personally? Not through an assistant or a publicist?”
Keeping present company in mind, Bruce hoped the hidden part of his answer came across clearly. “It might be easier to ask him any questions Dick has about Superman’s abilities, along with a few of my own.”
At his mention, Dick stopped toying with his scrambled eggs and looked between the both of them. “So, you want to talk to this guy because Superman talked to him?”
“Sure. If he’s good enough to interview a superhero, he’s good enough to do the same with me.”
Alfred briefly met his gaze and nodded his approval.
“Meet you as Bruce Wayne or the Bat?” Dick asked, squinting suspiciously.
“The Bat doesn’t give interviews,” he said flatly. “But if he might pay this reporter a visit if he isn’t forthcoming with Bruce Wayne in exchange for an exclusive.”
“Do you think he can help you meet him?” Dick asked, full of the childlike wonder he’d been missing since they’d met. “Can I meet him?”
Bruce opened his mouth to reply then realized that he had no definite answer that wouldn’t crush the boy’s hopes. This had been the most he’d said all month outside of what they needed to solve his parents’ murder, mumbling questions about his new life situation and the odd tactless question like when he’d asked if the manor was haunted, if Alfred was Bruce’s father and, if not, then where Bruce’s parents?
Explaining to Dick that Bruce was essentially a far more privileged version of him had not been an easy conversation, but it had made him less distant and distrusting.
“You could probably meet the reporter,” Alfred answered for him. “As for Superman, he seems to frequent Metropolis, so, a day trip there could come with a chance of spotting him.”
That response dulled the brightness in Dick’s eyes. Bruce felt like scrambling to relight it. “We can go to Metropolis to ask the reporter, and see if he knows how to find Superman.”
It was a stupid and pointless hope to give him, but who knew, it could pan out in some shape or form. Perhaps glimpsing Superman through a hotel window would turn out to be enough excitement for Dick.
“So, it is settled that you intend to speak to this man in person?” Alfred asked. “Should I phone his workplace and set up a meeting then?”
Bruce considered that option and if Clark would be open to answering his own questions if he asked them while the man was on the clock and in his presence to do his job. No, it would definitely come off as odd, off-putting and suspicious, and he needed any conversation they had about the alien to seem organic and casual, that would encourage him to share any unused information or observations or theories he had left out of his article.
“He has no doubt gotten the interest of many others since this interview was published,” Bruce said. “I think a first meeting in person, where we can discuss him interviewing me, would be best for all our goals.”
“I’ll see if he’s covering any upcoming events so you can seek him out there,” Alfred said, finishing his coffee before heading off.
When he left, Bruce picked up a piece of bacon and chewed on it as he thought about the steps he needed to take with this plan, and how he could go about collecting as many answers from this man without showing his hand. The last thing he needed was for someone who worked in news to find him strange enough to warrant a closer look.
As he ate another piece, he found that Dick had finished his plate and was rereading the interview again, or just looking at the accompanying picture with awe.
Maybe it wouldn’t be anything worth noting if the odd questions had come from a child rather than from Bruce himself.
“Do you want to write me any questions you want me to ask the reporter?” he suggested. “Or would you like to ask him yourself?”
Dick was surprised. “You’d let me come with you?”
“Only if you want.”
He glanced at the paper then looked back at Bruce, giving him a small smile. “Okay.”
It was looking like he would kill at least two birds with this one stone. He’d establish contact with someone who knew about both Superman and the metahuman on his turf, and he’d have some kind of bonding experience with his ward that didn’t involve his retribution for his parents’ death.
That wasn’t including the official reason that Bruce needed to make the leap into public relations and start out safe with someone not local and not bold enough to skewer him for being both an Arkham and a Wayne. If anyone asked why, he would simply say that he could have done a lot worse than the guy who had gotten Superman’s attention.
The question was, how did Clark Kent get Superman’s attention to begin with? What was so special about him? What had he done to get this exclusive? Was there any information that the alien gave him that ended up being cut for the word count or edited out at his request?
All of those questions needed answers, and the plan to getting them started now.
The afternoon passed with Bruce having to report for a half-assed day at Wayne Enterprises to discuss quarterly earnings, while Alfred took Dick to therapy. Bruce had wanted to accompany him, but he didn’t want him to feel pressured, at least for the first time post-adoption. Bruce remembered how he’d felt when he’d first been put in the same situation, how reluctant he’d been to talk, how he hadn’t wanted to discuss the session with Alfred or his aunt afterwards. Not that his aunt had remained that invested in how Bruce faired long after that, she was always just so busy with her high society social life and micromanaging her daughters to the extent that one was flattened and the other rebelled in every way possible.
Bruce did not want Dick to become him, he didn’t want to overcorrect and act like his aunt either, because a male version of Beth or Kate would be even worse than he currently was. He was probably going to need to actually talk with Dick’s therapist alone, just to get an idea on how to not fuck up a kid now in the custody of a fucked-up individual.
By the time Bruce had gotten back to the manor, his head was pounding, mainly from being in direct sunlight for so long after the night he’d had, and, to a lesser extent, from all the business talk he’d had to endure at the company. Today had been mostly Lucius Fox showing him designs and innovations for their vehicle subsidiary, namely what went into their contract with the military. Bruce kept his comments about the aerodynamic design to himself. It was ugly, but it was functional. At least it wasn’t a cybertruck.
He slouched in, still keeping his shades on, and found Alfred and Dick already at the dining room, a cold lunch served and, thankfully, being enthusiastically consumed. The session must have gone over well, because from what Bruce could remember from his experience was that talking about his family situation had always shut off his appetite.
Some days, he debated if his appetite for anything had ever returned at all.
“This came today for you, sir,” Alfred greeted him as he entered, handing him a stiff envelope.
Bruce saw no point in maintaining the lacquered design and ripped it open, revealing an invitation to the opening of the new wing at the Metropolis Museum, funded and full of objects from a Luthor collection. In fact, he had been invited by Lex himself.
This would be a good chance to seek out Clark Kent. Someone from the Daily Planet would definitely be sent to cover the event. The issue was that he needed to start getting into the right headspace to socialize and project himself as normal before he attended.
“A museum would be a nice spot for his first official outing with you,” Alfred suggested, unheard by Dick, who was, once again, playing a game on his phone as he ate his sandwich.
Bruce nodded, rolling a slide of salami before popping it into his mouth. “Everything is coming together, or it should at this event.”
“Let’s hope there aren’t any unpleasant surprises,” Alfred said, eyeing the invitation. “Luthor will no doubt try something with you, be it for work or social profile.”
The initial discomfort of socializing had begun to ooze in his gut, but if he could brave the most rotten parts of Gotham, he could deal with what were supposed to be his fellow heirs to companies and fortunes.
He just hoped that he remembered how to behave in the moment.
Patrol from the night before had left him with a mild ache in his shoulder. He had gotten into it with a few of the Jokers’ wannabes, their crude face-paint barely doing anything to hide their faces from his identifying scan. He made sure they were added onto a watchlist and forwarded to Gordon.
With the help of some strong painkillers and very dark shades, Bruce was driven across the harbor bridge into Gotham’s golden sister city, Metropolis, by Alfred and accompanied by Dick, who for once, was not glued to his phone and peering out the car windows. Metropolis might have been one of the first cities in America to adopt this sleek, hyper-modern aesthetic, but its dedication to maintaining the gleaming veneer had to be commended, especially with how often it attracted wreckage from creatures, mad scientists, aliens and the odd human supervillain.
But Bruce had a feeling Dick’s wide-eyed wonder wasn’t strictly for the cityscape view they got from the bridge, but all in the unblinking hope that he’d spot the blessed blur that was Superman.
They arrived at the Metropolis Museum right when the press was unavoidable, and as Alfred liked to remind him, he wasn’t here to hide. They had to face the flashing lights and the insistent shouts for their attention now that they were at an event held by someone who should be a friend, on paper at least.
Thankfully, Dick didn’t object to Bruce taking his hand and leading him through the red carpet that had been rolled out for all the big names. He seemed far less bothered by the commotion, but that must have been old news to him as someone born into the circus, raised to perform, to please, to absorb the flashes of the cameras and reflect them back in a big, crowd-pleasing smile.
Alfred went to park their town car and Bruce and Dick waded up the steps into the museum proper, and right at the entrance, between the Roman pillars that bordered it, someone stepped out of the shadows to latch onto him.
“Do mine eyes deceive me?” Maxwell Lord greeted, far too loudly, eyes suspiciously dilated. “Bruce Wayne, as I live and breathe! Nice of you to join us in the land of the living!”
A generation or so older than Bruce himself, Max Lord IV had successfully taken his disgraced father’s fortune and expanded it, turning the lawsuit-ridden Lord Medical into LordTech, and spearheading into brow-raising ventures such as funding and equipping sanctioned superheroes, like those currently making use of the Justice League of America’s headquarters.
It wasn’t too bad of an idea, perhaps something Wayne Enterprises could get into for good press after what the Riddler’s reveal had done to his family’s reputation. It would also scope out powered individuals and keep them from becoming supervillains.
“Nice to see you too, Max,” Bruce greeted with a forced smile. “Didn’t know you were into history.”
Max snorted, waving the thought off. “I’m here because Lex invited me, and to donate. Gotta keep up with those tax deductibles, am I right?”
He tried wiggling his arm from Max’s grip. “Right.”
“Ted Kord and Oliver Queen should be here too,” Max continued, rambling, definitely affected by something. “Hey, you know what we should do after this is over with? We should all hang out! I’ve got reservations at this top-tier sushi place in downtown, their teppanyaki is to die for!”
“Max—”
“It’s been ages since all of us were in one place, we’re going to have so much fun, I have these mushrooms that come as a chocolate and they hit so—”
“MAX!”
Bruce didn’t like to raise his voice unless absolutely necessary, but calm warnings wouldn’t work on someone in Max’s condition. The sharp reminder made him straighten up and release Bruce’s arm, frowning, “Dude, what’s with the volume? I’m right here.”
“I’m afraid if that’s how it is, I will have to decline.”
“You’re kidding right?”” Max practically pouted. “What? You telling me you Gothamites don’t do much worse over brunch?”
“Max, I’m not alone tonight,” Bruce said, raising Dick’s arm, who had started giggling behind his hand.
As if he hadn’t noticed him until now, Max did a double-take and set his hands on his bent knees to peer down at Dick. “Whoa, I forgot about this. Can’t believe you actually went through with it. How’s it going, kid?”
Adaptable as he was, Dick was still nine, and he had the tact to prove it. “Are you on drugs?”
Max spluttered through his surprise. “How does he know what that is?”
“Gotham,” Bruce answered in the same breath Dick had declared, “Circus.”
“Right, right. Story of the decade.” Max nodded, addressing the boy. “What was your name again? Ricky?”
“Dick.”
Max cracked up, too loud, too amused, near-hysterical. “Damn, kid, did your parents hate you?”
Dick scowled at him, a look that should have been silly on his pre-pubescent face, but it was serious enough to cut Max’s laughter short. “Whoops, forgot how you got here for a sec. But seriously, why did they call you that?”
“It was my mother’s favorite grandfather’s name,” Dick said proudly.
“Sure hope that guy’s memory is worth getting bullied,” Max grumbled. “But who knows, it might build character.”
Bruce had a feeling that Dick was about to go for Max’s knees, just as he had done to Zucco’s goons with a lead pipe, so he steered him inwards. “It was nice seeing you, Max.”
Max objected to their abrupt departure, but they pretended they didn’t hear him and speed-walked into the museum.
“That guy is so weird,” Dick grumbled, slipping his hand from Bruce’s. “But harmless-weird, not Gotham-weird.”
“Harmless if you don’t mind being pranked, since he likes slipping people drugs at parties and laughing at how they react.”
“Do you know that from your cameras or from that happening to you?”
“The latter,” he sighed. “He did it to me and the host of this party when we were in our early-twenties. I threw up and Lex had a meltdown.”
“Why didn’t you get him arrested?”
“Couldn’t prove it, and it wasn’t worth the hassle of coming after someone who could easily sue or countersue me,” he explained as they waded into a crowded space surrounded by encased pieces from the Luthor collection. “It’s hard to go after the wealthy and connected in general.”
“That’s why the Bat sticks to Gotham?” Dick whispered, just enough for him to hear.
He stuck his hands in his coat pocket as he looked around. “Among other reasons.”
They went around the room, admiring everything on display, all the while both of them kept an eye out for other things, Dick peering at the windows for Superman, and Bruce browsing for press, namely anyone with a Daily Planet badge.
Somewhere around the Tang Dynasty vase, Bruce was intercepted by one of the people Max had mentioned, Oliver Queen, who grabbed him by the upper arms and greeted him with a megawatt grin like they were old friends. “I heard you were here but I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it!”
Oliver was an old schoolmate of his, a year above him at Excelsior Academy, an all-boys secondary boarding school Alfred had sent him to under the orders of Thomas Wayne’s will. He was now working at his father’s company, Queen Industries, and living his best carefree life, traveling, setting up charities and competing in archery competitions of all things.
He was as handsome and bright as Bruce remembered, blond hair and beard shining like burnished gold, blue eyes crinkled with laughter lines, tanned skin freckled like he spent an inadvisable amount of time under the sun for someone of his complexion. All-in-all, he exuded an enviable amount of confidence and comfort, but at least it seemingly had nothing but positive output.
And if Bruce had had a bit of a fixation on Oliver back at school, that was his business. He was allowed to be resentful and jealous of people who had turned out the way he himself should have, had his childhood not been so traumatic.
The smile he gave him was far more genuine than the one he'd given Max. “Ollie, it’s great to see you.”
Oliver gave him an enthusiastic shake. “I’ll bet. When was the last time we breathed the same air? Harvey Dent’s fundraiser last Christmas?”
He tried not to react at the mention of Harvey, their district attorney. Bruce's last encounter with him had been a bit embarrassing to say the least. “Probably.”
He tutted at him. “You can’t keep disappearing like that and then show up for Lex of all people, it’s going to hurt my feelings.”
“Who said I showed up for Lex?”
Oliver released him to gesture around. “Then why else are you here?”
“My ward had hoped to glimpse Superman, or talk to the reporter that interviewed him.”
Oliver jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “You mean Clark Kent? I just saw him talking to Vicki Vale in the gardens.” Oliver then frowned at Bruce’s side. “Might want to find your kid before you find him though.”
Somehow, to his shame and horror, that was what it had taken for Bruce to notice that Dick had vanished from right by him.
Swallowing his panic, he tried to appear mildly concerned as he asked Oliver, “Did you see which way he went?”
“No, but he couldn’t have gone far.” Oliver turned his head to wave someone over.
A statuesque woman with ash-blonde hair in a black halter gown hurried over to them. Oliver’s date, Dinah Lance, a bold and unconventional choice for someone of his status to date a psychiatrist, but she was stunning nonetheless.
“Bruce, this is Dinah, my fiancée. Dinah, you know Bruce Wayne.”
“Who doesn’t?” Dinah offered him her hand and he was too busy panicking to consider that she was expecting him to kiss it and say something flirtatious and charming, so he just gave it a brisk shake and dropped it, earning him a thick, dark, quirked brow.
“His kid just gave him the slip, mind helping us find him?”
“Oh, I have a few patients who have done the same to their guardians,” Dinah said, already looking around. “I’ll take the east wing.”
“I’ll take the west.” Oliver pointed to Bruce. “Might want to check the gardens. I’ll text you if we find anything!”
They split with immediate efficiency, and before he went to the gardens, Bruce searched the curtains and every balcony within reach, calling Dick’s phone the whole time and getting nothing but nerve-wracking claims that the number was unavailable. Dick’s phone had to have died, either from not being charged at home, or from those stupid games he played.
He was about to head to security and push for an announcement over the speakers when he was interrupted by the host himself, nearly mowing him over.
“Lex, hi, didn’t see you there,” he said distractedly, still looking around.
“Really? I’ve been told I’m pretty hard to miss,” Lex said with a friendly air, leaning into Bruce’s space with a single-minded determination.
Bruce’s mouth twitched as he let out a humored huff. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
They’d last met last year, at a gala held by the Martha Wayne Foundation, the first of a tradition Bruce was hoping to maintain in his mother’s memory, to undo the impact her parents had had on Gotham’s healthcare. They had briefly interacted, but Lex had been just as focused and intense as he was now.
Then, to add to the tense air, Lex stepped forward and gripped his arm, forcing him to make eye contact.
Not yet used to harmless sudden movements, Bruce jumped back, snatching his arm away with a suspicious frown.
Lex tried to recover the moment by smiling disarmingly, hands raised. “Easy, I just wanted to share something private, talk into your ear. We can just move to a different room if you want?”
He didn't have time for this. If he didn't find out where Dick had gone right now he was going to start acting up. And if he'd found out that someone had lured him away, or even taken him, he wasn't going to care how he was perceived by the public anymore, because he would be well within his right to get violent!
“Maybe later. I’m looking for someone,” he managed through a firm jaw.
Not getting the hint or even straight up ignoring it, Lex slid to Bruce’s side and set a hand on his back to nudge him along to the adjacent hallway. “What a coincidence, so am I. Why don’t we look for them together?”
Bruce shook his head, taking out his phone and redialing the number he’d called five times previously. “I just need him to pick up before I start thinking the worst.”
“That you were stood up?” he teased.
Bruce had been in a lot of hair-raising situations as the Bat, but not much as himself, not since his teens, so he didn’t think about how someone like him would react to being hit on in a moment like this. The glare he'd reactively aimed Lex’s way might have been a bit too noteworthy, but it had done its job, getting him to back off a bit.
“I’m worried that he could have been snatched.”
Lex's brows knit together confusedly. “Wait, who are you looking for?”
“My ward, Richard.” Bruce frustratingly dialed again, only for the call to not connect and prattle off the usual ‘The number you have called is not available at the moment, please try again later’. “I kept telling him playing those stupid games sucks up the battery, and not to wander too far away from me,” he grumbled, stepping away from Lex’s touch to stalk down the hall, peering into every adjacent doorway. “I talk to Oliver Queen and Max Lord for a second and he vanishes from my side.”
Lex followed, invested for some reason. “What did Max want? A deal with your medical division?”
Having only enough mind to spare to shake his head, Bruce turned back and stalked through the crowd, crossing the ballroom to look through the windows of the balconies until he reached one that was open and rushed in, yelling “DICK?”
A small voice responded from below. “Bruce?”
Before relief or confusion could take hold, a man’s voice followed. “Is this your dad?”
Bruce bent over the rim of the balustrade to peer down at the museum grounds, not caring where he was or who he was with. “What’s going on down there? What happened?”
“I fell,” Dick’s small, sad voice replied.
How on Earth did someone like Dick fall off a place like this? What was he doing?
Lex joined Bruce, looking down at Dick, who laid on the walkway, a little banged up, while a man knelt beside him, carefully checking his ankle. “But the good news is, nothing’s broken!”
Bruce breathed a sigh of relief and was about to swing his leg over the balustrade and hop down. “I’m coming down.”
Seemingly having the most sense between them in this moment, Lex grabbed him by the elbow. “You can just use the stairs!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll come right up to you,” said the man, carefully picking Dick up. “Just stay where you are.”
That left them waiting in impatient silence until a large figure emerged from the crowd, catching confused and concerned looks as he approached, carrying Dick on his hip like he were a toddler.
Backlit by the interior of the room and cast in the moonlight from the balcony, Clark Kent smiled at him with friendly warmth. “Hi, there. I was about to come looking for you.”
A cursory search of this man’s sparse personal details across his social media didn’t prepare Bruce for how he was in person.
It wasn’t necessarily his size that struck Bruce, because he had encountered a fair bit of men that were bigger than him, and beaten them in fights. It was how he carried himself, with a casual slump to his broad shoulders, allowing the unflattering light blue suit to wear him rather than the other way around, and the same went for the bulky square-framed black glasses that marred his broad face. He could have easily blended in with any crowd, and perhaps that helped with his work as someone who needed to hone his observational skills and make notes of what would slip most others, but it didn’t feel like an effort, not a malicious one at least. It felt like he was clueless to his own natural, enviable traits, dulled by his thoughtless styling choices.
Square-jawed with a big, easy smile that dimpled endearingly, he had thick, curly black hair that hung over his eyes, and unlike Bruce, his didn't seem to be dyed, providing a different kind of stark contrast to his fair skin, framing him rather than washing him out.
Apart from his general outline, Bruce picked up on the main vibe that emanated from him. Alfred had long taught him how to read people, and he had expanded upon that from years of wandering around in disguise and pouring through hours of security footage, and he knew when people were faking being open and friendly, and they usually were.
But Clark Kent’s approachable demeanor seemed...genuine, and it helped settle the frigid worry that had gripped Bruce from the moment Dick had given him the slip.
Deciding that he was harmless, Bruce let out a sigh of relief and reached for his ward, who Clark carefully handed over. “Thank you, I got so worried that someone had taken him.”
“Does that tend to happen at these events?” Clark asked lightly, making a pointless effort to straight the wrinkles on his cheap suit, definitely gotten off the rack and not taken to a tailor to pinch to his measurements. “I thought everyone here was, y’know, above that and had guards.”
“We’re from Gotham,” Bruce said in lieu of an explanation.
“Ah,” said Clark, cringing, the corners of his mouth pulling down with comical effort. “No offense, but that place gives me the creeps.”
Taken aback by the tactless honestly, Bruce smothered a snort. “Don’t you have to deal with kaiju coming out of the water and mad scientists here?”
“While stressful, I feel that is less scary than the people that keep popping up in Gotham.” Clark shuddered, making Dick laugh softly.
Lex chose that moment to remind them of his presence. “It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.”
It was as if Clark hadn’t noticed him until he spoke, which no doubt stoked Lex’s self-important fury. “Mr. Luthor, sorry I didn’t see you there.” Like he had forgotten himself, Clark gasped softly and hurriedly raised his hand. “I believe I have you to thank for the invite tonight?”
Bruce couldn’t help frowning at that fact. It seemed that Lex had had the same idea as him, seeking out the person who had made proper first contact with Superman for a one-on-one interaction tonight. Whatever reason Lex Luthor had couldn’t be insignificant or based on harmless curiosity, his public likes of superhero criticism had said as much.
Lex stepped closer, further into the light, shaking Clark’s hand for a little longer than someone like him ought to. “Yes, I was very impressed with your interview with the Superman.”
Suspicion confirmed, Bruce decided that he needed to follow Lex’s lead, and try luring Clark closer with a quiet offer of something. Something worth whatever information he had kept to himself on the Superman.
Schooling his face into simple, open curiosity, he looked between them. “You’re Kent from the Daily Planet?”
Clark seemed delighted that they both had read his work, an unabashed joy flickering in his blue eyes. They were a warm shade, like a cloudless afternoon sky, far unlike Lex’s pale, cold blues. “Oh, wow, you know who I am?”
To his own surprise, Bruce found himself reflecting a genuine smile. It was small, no show of teeth, but his lips quirked up enough for his eyes to crinkle. “We enjoyed the interview, and then I checked out the rest of your articles. You’re pretty good.”
“We?”
Dick waved, including himself. “Next time, can you ask Superman if he can beat Max Mercury in a race?”
A soft laugh escaped Clark, humored but visibly awkward as he rubbed his neck. “I don’t know if there will be a next time, but if there is, I’ll be sure to ask him.”
“Please do,” Bruce said softly, attempting to be charming. “You could do so much with this honor you’ve been given.”
For a moment, their gazes locked and Bruce felt the atmosphere shift around him, disconnecting him from the chatter inside, the weight in his arms, and the looming presence of his competition. All that seemed to exist in the moment were himself and the reporter, who looked similarly affected, a faint but noticeable flush rising on his cheeks.
What was happening?
Interrupting the moment, Clark cleared his throat and took out his phone. “Speaking of being given the honor: I know this isn’t the right time, but since you’re here, do you think you could give me a quick interview? My boss would have my hide if he found out we’d met and I didn’t get anything.”
That broke the spell, bringing him back to Earth. After all, this was one of the goals he’d set out to achieve tonight, but he couldn’t help the initial discomfort that surged from press prying into his life.
Swallowing his reservations, Bruce decided to play up his hesitance to magnify the significance of him saying yes, and extended that breathless moment by sharing a considering look with Dick.
Dick raised his brows at him, prompting, encouraging.
Mind made up, he exhaled through his nostrils and said, “I haven’t done one of those in years, but…” He readjusted Dick on his hip and reached out for Clark’s phone. He tapped out a number and handed it back. “Call my office and they’ll set up a meeting next week.”
“Thank you so much,” Clark spluttered, eyes wide with disbelief. “Seriously, this is an amazing opportunity.”
There was that genuine smile again, and it made Bruce’s heart skip a beat for some inexplicable reason. “More amazing than interviewing a superhero?”
Clark ducked his head, unable to control his expression as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Yeah. Well. Um. It’s, just, uh, Superman is so new, y’know? Whereas you’ve been hard to get a hold of for ages, for anyone. So, I just really appreciate you choosing me.”
“Consider it repaying a kindness,” he said sincerely, before adding, “That, and if a superhero trusts you enough to make first contact, then you must be different than all the other vultures that work in news.”
Clark's mid-face reddened, sparing Bruce from overthinking his choice in words. “I try to be.”
Why did Bruce feel so warm all of the sudden?
The mild distraction wasn’t enough to dull years of honing his senses, because he had picked up on Lex’s slight shift closer, coming between them to remind them of his presence. His staring was also hard to ignore, unsettling Dick, who faced Lex with an uneasy expression.
Lex smiled at Dick, but as expected, it didn’t reach his eyes, making it a cold show of teeth.
As much as Bruce wanted to try misdirecting him from Clark, or even monopolize Clark’s attention tonight, he had to get used to putting someone else’s needs before his own wants, and Dick probably wanted to leave now.
“I’ll see you next week then, Mr. Kent.” Bruce headed out, forgetting to even bid Lex goodbye.
As he passed him, he noticed Clark spinning on his heel and waving at Dick, who turned in Bruce’s hold and enthusiastically returned the gesture.
Safely out of anyone else’s earshot, Bruce asked, “Is there a good reason for why you ran off from my side?”
Dick faced him, guilty yet defensive. “I was following that guy you were looking for, and look! I found him!”
“You couldn’t spare me a quick explanation before disappearing?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t think of that.”
“What about your phone? Why is it dead?”
He seemed surprised by that fact, patting his trouser pocket. “It’s dead?”
“Dick, this isn’t funny,” Bruce sighed, exiting the ballroom as he dug through his coat for his own phone, firing off a text with his thumb. “You really scared me for a minute there.”
“How did I scare you? You’re the one who’s scary!”
Bruce stifled a frustrated groan and set Dick down on his feet as they reached the entrance, Maxwell Lord was still lurking outside, smoking with three others he was loudly chatting with. He faced him, trying to mimic Alfred’s efforts from when he was this age, grabbing Dick’s shoulders to force him to meet his eyes. Bruce didn’t enjoy making eye contact, but he knew a moment like this required it.
“We talked about this. About you being careful because we live in Gotham, because you live with me, and know what I do.” Bruce explained. “When I said I wanted you to keep me informed on everything, I didn’t just mean when we tracked down Zucco, I meant all the time.”
Dick frowned up at him confusedly. “Why? The man that killed my parents is in prison now.”
Frustrated and trying to remind himself that he was dealing with a child, Bruce rubbed at his face and then ran his hand through his hair as he gathered his wits. “The danger doesn’t stop because one criminal is off the streets. It’s why I can’t stop doing what I do. And being who I am makes me and anyone seen with me a target.”
“How will any bad guys know who I am?”
“Dick, thousands now know you as Bruce Wayne’s ward,” he reminded him. “Whether I like it or not, I’m famous, and that attracts a lot of bad attention from people who want to hurt me and would want to use you to do that.”
He didn’t want to talk about his experience with ransoms and threats, or how he’d gotten one of the scars on his chest from his high-profile kidnapping years and years ago, but he might be forced to discuss it just to personify the concept to a child who had had the most common fears trained out of him since infancy.
Thankfully, Dick spared him from reliving that experience when his shoulders shifted up with discomfort. “You mean like how Zucco used my parents against Mr. Haly?”
“Yes, exactly like that,” he said, a bit relieved. “I just need you tell me what you’ll do before you do it, and be within reach, so keep your phone charged. Okay?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Alfred had swiftly brought the car around and once they’d settled in the backseat, Bruce met his eyes in the rearview mirror. He raised his brows questioningly, asking if Bruce had done what he’d come to achieve.
“He’s going to call later to set up time for an interview,” Bruce told him. “I’ll need to prepare my answers in advance.”
“And your questions on Superman,” Alfred added. “As well as how to convince him to share what he didn’t in his article.”
“He told me some stuff when I asked,” Dick piped up.
Bruce faced him, intrigued. “And what kind of stuff did he tell you?”
Seemingly oblivious to the importance of the fact he’d just dropped, Dick grinned brightly, baring the gap between his teeth, one of them having just fallen out recently. “He said Superman can’t breath underwater, but he can hold his breath for a long time!”
That was interesting, and could prove useful at some point. “Anything else?”
Dick wiggled his foot as he thought deeply. “Uhhh, he said that Superman can eat lots of stuff like rocks and metal, but he prefers regular food, and that people in Metropolis sometimes thank him by giving him stuff from bakeries.”
Bruce wondered how likely it was for him to lure the alien through the scent of a pie, like an old Donald Duck cartoon.
“So, he’s forthcoming with this information?” Alfred asked interestedly. “Perhaps you won’t have to worry about your next encounter too much, Master Bruce.”
“Maybe,” he sighed, already thinking of how to proceed. “Though I now worry about what he might be telling others, namely Lex Luthor.”
“That bald guy?” Dick asked, grimacing. “Why’re you worried about him?”
Why indeed?
He slouched in his seat, setting his elbow on the door handle and his cheek on his knuckles as he thought. “So far it’s just a hunch, but I feel like he might use any vital information on the Superman for his own personal gain.”
Dick watched him, curious. “And what are you going to use it for?”
“To figure out if he’s at risk of being a threat, and what to do if he is,” he explained. “What affects Metropolis will eventually affect Gotham, and vice versa.”
“Vice versa?”
“It’s Latin. It means something like ‘the same in reverse’ or ‘also the other way around’.” Bruce moved his eyes back in Dick’s direction, finding him oddly deep in thought. “What?”
“My mom used to say stuff in Latin,” he murmured, fingers linked, playing with his thumbs. “Before we went up—before we did our stunts, she used to say ad astra per aspera.”
“Through adversities to the stars,” Alfred translated. "Fitting for an aerialist."
“Yeah, that,” Dick said quietly. “Said it like we would actually fly to the stars one day.” He looked up, meeting Bruce’s gaze. “Can you ask him if Superman can reach the stars?”
Bruce wanted to reason that he had technically come from the stars, and claimed to have come from the orbit of a dying star to be exact, but he knew that wasn’t what Dick wanted to hear right now. He needed to be given a little wondrous hope to distract him from how much he missed his mother.
“Make me a list of everything you want to know.”
The brightness that rose in his eyes told Bruce that he needed to do whatever it took to get all their answers, even if it meant giving Clark Kent the most invasive exclusive every newspaper in the world would spill blood for.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Hi hello I did not expect to take so long to update 😩 my last fic updated weekly but life has been all over the place since I finished that and started this but anyway I'm here now and this chapter is like 3x the size of the first one so enjoy
My fancast for Bruce's cousin Kate Kane is Evan Rachel Wood
Also tell me if you have any Battinson-core song recs for this fic's Writing Playlist!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Three days later, Bruce was jarringly woken up by Alfred yanking the curtains open and announcing that he had a lunchtime interview set for him by his assistant. He had technically been informed of that fact via text, but he’d gotten caught up in spending his mornings talking to the shareholders at Wayne Enterprises about the next quarter’s projected earnings and his nights pouring over every suspected move Gotham’s resident meta was up to. According to the head of public relations, he needed to start hosting events for his causes to get more investment and for the company’s name to outgrow the Riddler’s impact. He also needed to get solid proof that this Poison Ivy existed.
Last night, he’d also had to hustle Dick out of the cave with the firm reminder that his involvement in Zucco and Maroni’s takedown had been an exception and that he now needed to focus on being a normal child.
Right before slamming his bedroom door shut, Dick had declared that he was never going to be normal.
Frustrated as he was, Bruce knew he couldn’t blame him, because he knew how he felt! He knew! And that was without finding out that his guardian was secretly the urban legend hardened criminals feared. The closest comparison he’d had was Alfred telling him that, prior to working for his family, he’d been a member of MI6. And having been the kind of spy that inspired James Bond was leagues above being the fucking Batman.
Grudgingly, Bruce swung his legs out of his bed and stretched his arms over his head, pulling at the sore muscles and the unyielding scars along his back and chest. “Did he leave his room yet?”
“Yes. He’s in the living room watching the cartoon about the blue dog.” Alfred said from within the walk-in closet.
Bruce rose to meet him, frowning interestedly. “Isn’t he a little old for Blue’s Clues? Is that even still on the air?”
Alfred emerged with a folded pile of grey clothes in one hand and a pair of bespoke leather dress shoes in the other. “He said it was called Bluey, and I reckon it’s something different than what you used to watch.”
“Right.” He took the clothes and headed to the ensuite bathroom only to linger in the doorway and seek him out from over his shoulder. “Does he still seem upset?”
Alfred quirked a brow at him. “No more than usual.”
“I mean about me banning him from the cave,” he explained. “I was worried that…”
He didn’t know how to put his every worry into words, their whole situation felt too complex to abbreviate.
Luckily, Alfred knew him well enough to get the gist. “He’s going to act out, you need to be prepared for that.”
“I am. I don’t vividly remember how I was at his age, but I know I wasn’t easy to deal with.”
“Still aren’t,” Alfred huffed, humored eyes crinkled slightly. “You know how he feels better than anyone, and you are doing the right thing by being there for him.”
“But how do I explain that to him?” Bruce asked. “How did you do that with me?”
“By being very patient and giving you space to mess about and come to your own conclusions.”
Bruce grimaced, unpleasant memories flashing at the edges of his vision. “I don’t want him to go through what I did. I don’t want him to—to—” he gestured at his chest, at where his most life-threatening wounds had been, directly at the reminder of his first true brush with death. “I’m scared it’s too late.”
“He won’t become like you if you don’t want him to,” Alfred said firmly. “It’s not too late, not if you don’t give up on him.”
“I won’t. I wouldn’t.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
Bruce let out a faint, sarcastic laugh. “I have everything to worry about. I’m Bruce Wayne and the Batman, the first half has its own problems but the second is the scariest, and he wants to keep being involved.”
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you about that at the beginning,” Alfred sighed, heading to the bedroom door. “You can’t shove that genie back in its bottle, but you can try to make the best of those three wishes.”
Bruce threw his clothes on the sink counter as he yelled, “The fuck does that even mean?”
“Don’t try to limit or smother him, it will backfire, believe me.” And with that, Alfred shut the door behind him.
He didn’t need to ask what Alfred had meant, he remembered how he’d acted, especially once he’d hit his teens. He wanted to avoid doing what had made him prone to sneaking out and getting into fights, but he didn’t want to actively involve Dick in something dangerous either.
If only he could talk to Dick’s therapist about any of this. He knew he couldn’t. Doctor-patient confidentiality did not include finding out the child’s guardian was a vigilante or that he’d tried given said child closure by having him dress up in his performance costume and beat the shit out of his parents’ murderer.
Billionaire or not, any sane psychiatrist would feel compelled to report him and have custody ripped away from him. He couldn’t risk that happening. Even if a compelling sum was deposited in that doctor’s bank account to keep them quiet, he couldn’t even risk whispers of who he was reaching the press, who were already hyper-focused on them both lately.
Speaking of the press, he needed to get his shit together before he met with Clark Kent.
Bruce may have forgotten about when exactly they’d be meeting again, but that didn’t meant he hadn’t thought about him since, because he had. He’d re-examined Clark’s article on Poison Ivy, and done some further invasive research on the man himself to figure out why Superman had chosen him.
As he showered, dressed, munched on a protein bar and drank his coffee, Bruce refreshed all the available information on one Clark J. Kent, twenty-seven years old, from a town he’d never heard of in Kansas, and likely the only person of note to emerge from that section of the state.
He didn’t want to say the lack of information was suspicious, but it certainly was odd that someone his age had such a limited social media presence. There was a Facebook account that hadn’t been active in years, a Bluesky where he posted links to his articles, the odd book review, and some opinions on news, music and shows, and an Instagram that had less than fifty images, most of which were of sunlit locations like his parents’ farm, his mother’s holiday bakes, barn cats, aesthetic shots of Metropolis throughout the seasons, and a handful of his workplace. Few were of himself, with the majority of pictures containing him being posted by others who’d tagged him. They mostly came from Pete Ross, a friend from back home, and Jimmy Olsen, a photographer for the Daily Planet.
The most Bruce could dig up via his work-email was a Spotify account with a few public playlists. His taste in rock ran a little more upbeat than Bruce’s did, but there was some overlap. He could try using that as small-talk, pave the way to butter him up when he started asking about Superman.
Having wasted enough time, he asked his WE assistant when Clark was arriving in Gotham and to have his mobile number forwarded to him. With the estimated meetup time to be three o’clock and Clark’s contact shared with him, Bruce bit the bullet and texted him, asking to meet at The Nightjar, an old restaurant in the now-nicer end of Gotham, overlooking the harbor.
Fiddling with his cufflinks, Bruce entered the living room and hovered a bit behind the couch, where Dick sat on the floor with his legs folded and his gaze fixed on the wide, flat-screened TV.
As if he’d sensed his presence, he turned his head, meeting his gaze from over his shoulder questioningly.
A minute passed with them staring at each other, and when it looked like Dick wasn’t going to budge first, Bruce gave in and broke the silence. “I’m going to see that reporter we met. Did you finish thinking of questions you wanted me to ask him?”
Dick paused the episode and turned at the waist, legs in one direction, upper body body in another, a move that would pop Bruce’s spine but was thoughtless for someone as limber as him. “You’re not mad?”
“At you? No. Why?”
He shrugged, eyes avoidant. “Because I slammed the door yesterday.”
This wasn’t the first time Dick had asked if either Bruce or Alfred were upset with him, which did make Bruce wonder what kind of parenting he was used to, as well as how often he’d been punished. Despite generally being good, affectionate people, the Graysons were no doubt stage-parents, and that level of dedicated effort to mold one’s child did not come free of harshness.
“I’d like if you never did that again, but no, I’m not mad, I’m…” He moved on from his cufflinks to checking his tie and the buttons of his vest, something to do while he thought of what to say next. “It would take a lot worse than that for me to get angry at you.”
Dick was too perceptive to let that part trail off. “If you’re not mad, then what what are you now?"
Did he answer honestly or did he just brush this off? What good would come from starting to lie to him now? He already knew everything.
In the end, he decided to go with “You kind of hurt my feelings.”
He frowned, puzzled, brows turned inwards. “Like, I made you cry?”
“Not cry, but just upset and worried, and when I get like that I have trouble sleeping,” he said honestly. “So, try not to do that, because I don’t get enough good sleep already.”
The corner of his mouth twisted up, not necessarily a smile, but a humored expression nonetheless. “Okay.”
Before another awkward silence could spread between them, Bruce cleared his throat. “So. Questions?”
Seemingly unburdened by their little talk, Dick jumped up to drape himself over the back of the couch and rattled off a list of enthusiastic questions for him to pass on to Clark. It helped ease some of the nervousness he had going into this interview.
Alfred managed to drive him to their set meeting only fifteen minutes after the agreed-upon time. Bruce didn’t want to arrive fashionably-late, because there was no point in being rude to someone that hadn’t ticked him off yet, but he did want to see how his prospective interviewer would react to him being showing up after him.
The car slowed to a stop outside The Nightjar, a refurbished spot that used to be one of Gotham’s most notorious speakeasies back during the Prohibition Era. Decades of gentrification had rendered this entire spot far more attractive than its initial setup, but it was still a step or two below the actual spots the city’s elite tended to frequent.
He hadn’t been here in ages, the last time being when his cousin Kate had brought him along for her birthday, celebrating her ‘freedom’ before she’d joined the army to appease her father and spite her mother.
The wooden exterior still maintained its Roaring Twenties design, but the gold-lined teal paint had been recently refreshed, and the window allowed a peak at the initial front to this establishment—a café that roasted its own coffee beans, attracting passersby with its smell.
Bruce exited squinting behind his shades, because even a place as murky with summer rain as Gotham still had blindingly-sunny days. He looked up and down the street and didn’t spot any sign of Clark waiting for him. He wondered if he was also running late, or if he’d gotten lost.
People didn’t tend to get robbed in broad daylight here, but conmen and pickpockets knew how to spot visitors from out of town, and Clark Kent would be an easy target.
Just before he could start worrying, Bruce spotted what had to be Clark through the door’s window. Half-turned on his barstool, big enough for his feet to reach the dark-wood floor, he was amiably chatting with his servers, holding his cup with one hand and gesturing with his other.
Bruce didn’t know why he lingered there, staring at the back of his head, listening as he made the waitress and the barista laugh at a story about a mischievous cow he had back on his parents farm.
Free of the ill-fitting suit jacket he’d worn at their first meeting, and the similar tailoring he was swimming in throughout the social and casual pictures he was tagged in, Clark’s broad back struck Bruce still. He had wide, strong shoulders, noticeable despite his soft posture, and thick arms that matched, their sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the hand he gestured with bearing an old wristwatch with a navy blue leather strap, definitely having belonged to someone else, likely his father.
There was a lot you could tell about someone without seeing their face, and Bruce had honed that ability to be able to read people from the footage he poured over, or when he was perched atop the many vantage points within Gotham and watching his targets through binoculars. There wasn’t anything that notable about how this man behaved before he’d realized that his subject had arrived, just an impression to compared to how he’d behave once he did notice Bruce.
The issue was, once he did notice Bruce, the standard effort to gather information suddenly increased in difficulty.
The owner emerged from the back, alerting everyone else to his presence. “Mr. Wayne, we’ve been wondering when you’d show up!”
Bruce hadn’t had the chance to give a breezy reply blaming traffic or parking, because Clark had turned on his seat to pin him to the spot with his simple spread of his lips.
His smile was blinding.
“Hello, again,” Clark greeted him good-naturedly, eyes crinkling, cheeks dimpling. “For a moment there I was worried that you'd stood me up.”
For some godforsaken reason, Bruce’s heartbeat had become uncomfortably fast, the way it used to pound with expectant terror whenever he’d been outnumbered and chased off from a fight. He felt like he’d been cornered by a threat.
But this wasn’t a threat, this was just some guy visiting from across the harbor, here to chat with him about a set number of subjects. Surely, he wasn’t this nervous about it being his first interview? Why would he? He’d agreed to this! He was going to get something out of it!
“Mr. Wayne?” Clark’s grin dimmed into a concerned smile, brows edging up beneath his unruly, curly fringe. “Are you all right?”
Shit. He must look really odd right now. Half the purpose of this interview was to stop any perception of him being odd.
Clearing his throat, he pushed up the smile he’d practiced in the mirror for events and pictures, and shifted closer and opened with a casual filler line. “Bruce, please. Mr. Wayne was my father.”
The owner and the staff laughed politely, but the remains of Clark’s smile had briefly fallen into open concern before he’d smoothed his face and gotten to his feet.
Hanging his workbag on his shoulder, he offered Bruce a hand. “Thank you so much for meeting me today.”
For a split second, Bruce didn’t know what came next in this professional song and dance. Did he wave him off? Did he thank him in turn? Did he try reestablishing the light tone Clark had set forth with his greeting and ask something like “What’s with the face?”
How did he mean for this entire encounter to go?
Just so another awkward silence didn’t permeate between them, Bruce decided to follow Clark’s lead for now, taking his hand. “No need to thank me, if anything I should be thanking you.”
Head tilted questioningly, a humored tilt at the corner of his mouth, he halted their shake and sought out Bruce’s eyes. “For what?”
“Sparing me from having to do this with whoever my publicist picked out, because God knows everyone else wouldn’t be as nice,” he admitted bluntly before he could rethink it.
Clark’s eyes widened slightly, offsetting the distortion from his bulky glasses. “We haven’t even started yet, I could get a lot less nice as we go on.”
Bruce looked up at him, properly meeting his gaze. “Maybe, but something tells me you won’t.”
“Because I could fumble this opportunity easily if I do?” Clark guessed, masking apparent nervousness with a joking tone.
He shook his head. “Because I wouldn’t have picked you otherwise.”
Clark’s lips parted slightly and the apples of his cheeks bloomed a soft pink.
It was normally an effort for Bruce to make and maintain eye contact, but once he met Clark’s gaze, he found himself forgetting that fact. Maybe it was because they’d first met at night and when Bruce had been already preoccupied with worrying about Dick and being bothered by Lex Luthor, but Bruce felt like he hadn’t actually noticed what this man really looked like until now.
It wasn’t possible, considering he’d studied all the available information on him, but perhaps he just wasn’t photogenic, or he was one of those people whose entire impression changed when their faces moved.
He was specifically one of those people whose smiles reached their eyes, and when he regained his earlier cheeky confidence and beamed at him, Bruce was once again struck dumb.
“Thank you anyway,” Clark said, giving his hand a brief squeeze before finally releasing it. That was what made Bruce realize that they had been holding hands this entire time.
Face a little warm, he addressed the owner. “If I remember correctly, you have a good spot for us to have this meeting?”
The man practically tripped over himself as he led them both back through the café and through the false back of an old phone booth, which opened onto the old speakeasy this place had been famous for.
Alone in the room, they settled across from one another in matching reupholstered armchairs, the black leather of the seats providing a stark contrast to Clark’s white button-up shirt and light blue tie, framing the whole of him as he looked around the place with genuine awe.
The bartender came to take their order, abruptly cutting off Clark’s engrossed admiration of the place’s dark, atmospheric, century-old decor.
“I’ll have an Old Fashioned,” Bruce said, prompting Clark in favor of meeting the bartender’s face. He didn’t want to start getting distracted by detailing everything and everyone else around them, he wanted to remain focused on his goal here today, even if he did throw him off a bit at first. “You?”
Clark stopped scanning the interior to smile at their server, a different kind of smile than what he’d given Bruce, smaller, subtler, but no less friendly. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t drink much.”
That was the first truly noteworthy trait he’d given Bruce today.
“Want me to order for you?”
He nodded. “Nothing too strong though.”
“You a lightweight?”
A soft, humored huff escaped him, like he’d remembered something funny. “No. I just don’t like the smell. Reminds me too much of vinegar.”
Bruce tucked that slice of information aside for later and addressed the bartender. “He’ll have a Bee’s Knees.”
When the bartender left, Clark leaned in, arms folded on the armrest, amusement up-tilting all his features. “Is it, in fact, the bee’s knees?”
Bruce couldn’t help mirroring his expression, corners of his mouth curving up. “It’s the sweetest thing here. Gin, lemon juice, honey.”
“You’ve tried the whole menu then?”
“Years and years ago,” he said. “I don’t drink much anymore.”
Bruce had been hoping Clark would start prodding for answers here so he could, in turn, ask him the same thing, and open up a way to ask about his most famous interviewee.
But Clark hadn’t taken the bait. Instead, he took out his phone and a notepad and pen, set them on the narrow, circular table between them, and then continued searching in his bag until he dug something out from the bottom with a soft “Ha!”
“Before we start, and I forget, here,” Clark said, holding out his fist.
Puzzled, Bruce extended his hand, palm up and Clark dropped something in it.
Staring up at him from the center of his palm was a small painted wood carving of a bluebird. “I…thank you?”
Clark wrinkled his nose at him. “It’s for Dick.”
Bruce blinked at him, still confused.
“When I found him in the garden, I asked him what his favorite animal was to distract him while I checked his leg, and he said he loved bluebirds and robins,” Clark explained, like this was a fact he was fond of. “I found this when I went to the flea market with Lois and her sister last weekend, thought he’d like it.”
It took every ounce of self-control for him to school his face into an acceptable expression, because his gut-instinct was to ask what the fuck did Clark think he was playing at or tell him that he couldn’t be buttered up.
Logically, there was nothing left for him to butter, because Clark had gotten the opportunity of a lifetime with this interview. It could still be calculated, to pave some further goodwill for out-of-pocket questions, or even something beyond today, aiming for connections or a setup with an acquaintance of Bruce’s. And while that wasn’t necessarily awful, and would just be this man trying to do his job, it was still upsetting to think about.
But Bruce was basically doing the same thing. He wasn’t here out of the goodness of his heart or to repay a favor. There was no reason for him to take any possible ambitious effort personally. They weren’t family, they weren’t friends. Bruce barely had the former and certainly didn’t have the latter.
The thought bothered him suddenly. It had been a fact he’d long-accepted until he’d started rethinking his life now that Dick was involved.
Dick deserved a passably normal parent. He deserved a social circle. He deserved a good example of a healthy adult man.
Clark Kent was not just a decent person with a calming presence, he was, reportedly, a good example of an adoptee. He could be a vital source of information and advice, especially as someone who’d already met Dick and seemed to have connected with him.
He looked at the little bluebird in his palm, not really worth anything outside the thought it posed, and calmed down enough to realize that this wasn’t what would someone would try to use to flatter or bribe or even lower the guard of a person like him.
Once the concern and suspicion had subsided, Bruce had decided that this little gift was just Clark being thoughtlessly nice. And as much as Bruce struggled to believe in the existence of genuinely nice people, they did exist, even in news media apparently.
The bartender swiftly placed their drinks on the table between them and headed off just as Bruce unclenched his jaw to reply, “That’s very thoughtful of you. I’m sure he’ll love it.”
Pleased with that response, Clark clicked his pen and relaxed in his chair. “Ready to start?”
“As I’ll ever be,” he grumbled under his breath, but Clark seemed to have heard him anyway, smothering a humored snort. “Any advice on how to handle my first interview?”
Seemingly surprised, Clark stared at him open-mouthed for a bit, vocalizing a long uncertain note until he settled on his response. “Uh, I guess try not to overthink it?” He cringed lightly and waved it off the hand holding the pen. “I mean, today is about you, so you set the pace, you set the limits, we do what you’re comfortable with and we can stop any time you want,” he assured him, seeking out his eyes. “You don’t have to worry because I’m here for whatever you need.”
Something about what Clark had said, the sincere focus in which he’d said it, as well as the soft depth of his voice, made Bruce grow warm all over.
“That’s—” he stopped to clear his throat and regain his grip. “That’s good to know.”
“So…?” Clark gestured to his phone.
Bruce picked up his drink and took a gulp, the sting of the alcohol hitting the soft inside of his throat, but the effect was near-immediate, helping him get ready. “Go.”
Clark pressed a button and spoke in a louder, clearer pitch. “This is Clark Kent for the Daily Planet, interviewing the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Gotham’s own Bruce Wayne. Thank you for being here with me today, Mr. Wayne.”
“I told you to call me Bruce,” he corrected automatically, before remembering that this wasn’t a casual chat but a fine-tuned conversation for public consumption and for the sake of redefining his image. He cringed as he gave out a rethought reply. “It’s a pleasure to be with you today, Mr. Kent.”
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Clark said, and from there the stock-answer niceties ended and Bruce’s nervousness rose back up.
“Is it?” he said before he could hold his tongue.
“Now, Bruce,” he said in a sharper, more pointed tone, no doubt shifting into his interviewer mindset. “I’m about to be the envy of every person who’s worked in news because they’ll all be wondering ‘Why, after all these years, has the elusive Bruce Wayne decided to make contact? And why did he choose to speak to this guy?’”
For some reason, Bruce decided to start with the truth. “Because of Superman.”
Fuck. He needed to backtrack a little and fast.
Thankfully, Clark seemed aware that this wasn’t the full answer and gave him something to build on. “You felt inspired by Superman’s actions or you figured that if he found me worth his time so could you?”
“Both, I guess.”
Clark gestured for him to continue, prompting him to elaborate with some of the soundbites his PR manager at WE had sent him. “After what happened to Gotham last year I felt like I needed to get out of my own head and start trying to make a difference, not just in private, but in public as well. I regrettably felt very disconnected from not just my city, but everyone in my life, until quite recently when a few major changes occurred and made me look at everything in a different light.”
“Are you open to talking about any of those lightbulb-moments?”
Bruce felt his mouth curve up slightly, amused by the visual. “I am. To an extent.”
He nodded, scribbling something on his notepad. “If I guess right on what one of those moments are, will you tell me about it?”
“Sure.”
Clark clicked his pen, retracting the tip before he pointed it at him. “I take it you recently becoming a parent has reframed your perspective on so many things, namely the active role you have been starting to take in your charity-work?”
“I’ve been on that path since before that, but yes, it has radically changed my life in a way I’d never have expected.”
“I’ll bet, especially since you came into fatherhood in a slightly unconventional way, especially for someone in your social standing,” Clark pointed out, too polite or media-trained to outright ask what the hell Bruce had been thinking. “Millions have been wondering what possessed you to do such a thing, which has led to quite a few alarming questions and worrying discussions I bet you have been wanting to put to rest.”
That was, technically, one of the reasons for this interview. Bruce was online enough to sift through the many trending topics and even news-led conversations on why a wealthy yet troubled thirty year-old recluse would choose to adopt a nine year-old boy by himself.
To be fair, 'adopt' wasn't the right word. He had been awarded guardianship, Dick was his ward. It would take a bit more time and a lot more back and forth until he officially became his son. But that was a tedious correction not worth going over.
Safe to say, too many of the general conclusions made his hackles rise. Yes, he couldn’t blame others for being suspicious or concerned, because people have been getting away with abusing the children they fostered or adopted since time immemorial, but that didn’t mean he liked hearing it about himself.
Breathing out through the small gap between his lips, he laid the groundwork with yet another soundbite from the publicist. “I try to avoid those upsetting insinuations and accusations as much as possible, and hope my ward can as well for as long as possible, because I remember how that kind of talk affected me as a child, and no one should have to have to go through what we both did and have that weighing on them as well.”
Bracing himself, he took a big gulp from his drink.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to lose one’s family and have to spend years hearing terrible theories about your situation,” Clark said to him. “But, as an adoptee, I can tell you that, for whatever reason you have made this life-changing decision for you both, I hope it all goes the way you need it to because you’re each other’s family now.”
A strange, prickling warmth spread through Bruce’s chest, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. He had known this fact about Clark through his invasive digging and the background check he’d requested via WE’s PR, claiming he just wanted to know who exactly he was going to be baring himself to. He hadn’t expected Clark’s background to be brought up this easily, but he was glad it had been, for him to dig for more information later and for him to ask for possible advice from his experience with being adopted.
He looked at his drink, rolling the melting ice in its glass so it clinked softly. “To be honest, the reason is probably nowhere as complex or concerning as people suspect it to be. It was an impulsive effort, one others had tried to talk me out of, but I knew in my gut—in my heart, that this decision was the right one.”
“How come?”
“Because I felt like I was one of the few people in this country, or even this world, who knew exactly how he felt,” Bruce admitted, throat a little tight, suddenly feeling like his shoulders had had a weight dropped onto them. “I saw myself in him in a way I couldn’t in my old classmates, my acquaintances, the higher-ups in my company, my contemporaries, or even my relatives.”
In fact, he hadn’t talked to any Arkham or Wayne relatives, especially after the sickening reveals the Riddler had made. His familiar interactions had been limited to a few text exchanges with his cousin Kate, who had recently left the military.
“So, when you witnessed the tragedy at Haly’s Circus you felt compelled to step in, to be for him what you needed when you were in his position?” Clark summed up, another polite prompt.
“Yes, ‘compelled’ is probably the best word to describe it,” he agreed, taking another sip of his drink, still looking anywhere but at Clark’s face. “Not to say that I didn’t have a great guardian when I went through the same thing, and that I wasn’t far more privileged than the majority of orphaned children in the world, or even in my city. But I hope it will help that I have been where he is now, and that I’ll know what mistakes to avoid, and what good things to expand upon.”
“I’m sure you will,” Clark said kindly. “I have noticed that the Martha Wayne Foundation has been upping its efforts lately, and that you have had Gotham’s group homes move their residents to better spots with better care.”
“Yes, ever since their conditions were brought to light by that terrorist we had last year, I have looked into their state and how the system has been dealing with the children under its care, and I am hoping to help make a significant change in how they operate,” he rattled off, thankful his memory was still clear enough to recite from different pages of the publicist-approved script even when he was nervous. “I don’t know how it took me this long to look into this, but I am here now, and I will try my best to make everything right.”
“Better late than never,” Clark said, finally trying his drink, pulling a quick, surprised face, like it wasn’t what he’d been anticipating. “Would you say you are now making this effort as a preventative measure?”
Stunned by slight left turn in the topic, Bruce almost dribbled his sip down his chin, holding his glass under it to catch any drops of whiskey. Licking his lips, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well, you mentioned the Riddler’s actions and the hidden truths he’d exposed as being the reason you finally looked into the care of orphans in Gotham. Do you now feel that if you better their care and conditions then it will lessen the chance of more children turning out like he had?” Clark asked, determined, gaze focused and unyielding, even when Bruce still refused to meet it. “Or would you say this is you trying to undo what your family’s impact has led to?”
Fuck. He should have anticipated this coming up.
The Riddler had blamed the shitty living conditions he and his fellow orphans had grown up under on the efforts of Thomas Wayne, and then pointed to the state of psychiatric treatment in Gotham as well, pinning it on Thomas’ in-laws, the Arkhams. These had been both been particularly horrific revelations for Bruce, shattering the view he’d had of his parents, and worsening the guilt he’d felt at being better off than everyone who’d suffered his tragedy.
A soft whistle filled his ears, like he was focusing on the sound of a tea kettle boiling in another room, like the cast-iron pot Alfred still preferred to the electric alternative.
Thinking of all this, at what had led to the creation of the Riddler, had been making him feel like a lousy detective, that in all the years he had been seeking out criminals to take down and punish he had never looked into his own background, or why his parents could have been truly murdered.
How was he going to phrase all this in a way that didn’t retread what he’d already recited, or sound stupid and hollow? The goal here was to lay the groundwork for radical change, a huge chunk of which could only come about with the re-establishment of a Wayne brand. People needed to know he was sincere, that this wasn’t entirely about cleaning up his parents posthumous personas and perception, that he wasn’t just some spoiled wealthy dilettante who wasted his life wallowing in his childhood tragedy and burying his sorrows in expensive alcohol and designer drugs.
He may not have truly cared what the public thought about Bruce Wayne, the Tragic Heir, but he knew that their perception did affect how those in his periphery viewed him. How Dick would view him once he entered society and started being questioned on his guardian.
For some other reason, he was immensely bothered by how he was being perceived by the man in front of him. It must have been because he had hoped to set up some kind of interpersonal relationship with Clark Kent, not just as a reporter, but as someone who no doubt knew something about the Superman that no one else did. He needed this man to like him, he needed this man to enjoy his company enough to confide in him, he needed to get a fucking grip.
He must have been spiraling in silence for a suspiciously long time, because he could hear Clark talking, eventually calling him loudly. “Bruce?”
“I got distracted. Sorry,” he said quietly, only to clear his throat and speak louder. “What were we saying?”
Clark eyed him with obvious concern. “Whether your new cause was born out of the awareness you developed from sudden parenthood or from some kind of responsibility you feel you have inherited, since the Riddler blamed the conditions that made him on negligence stemming from your father.”
That was a whole lot of words to say “Are you doing this because you feel bad, or because you want to look like you feel bad?”
No matter how hard he tried to keep a straight face, how he felt must have been obvious.
“It’s all right. I imagine this is a very hard subject for you.” Clark clicked his pen and raised his notepad. “I can remove this entire section if you want?”
“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “I don’t want to avoid this subject just because it’s hard for me. I’ve been letting its difficulty drag me down and keep me quiet for long enough, and that’s why I’m doing all this, because feeling guilty and staying away didn’t make anything better for anyone. I have to try the opposite now, I have to try my best with it, and I don’t expect it to absolve my family of any harm they’ve inadvertently caused, and I’m certainly not doing it to make myself feel better.”
“Then why are you doing all this?”
“Because I can,” he said plainly. “Before, I was convinced that no one would take me seriously and that I couldn’t make a difference, that anything I did as myself wouldn’t matter, but after what happened last year, after seeing what not trying could lead to, and connecting with someone else who’s suffered the way I have—” He exhaled shakily, feeling like he’d just babbled senselessly and repeated his earlier points with far less polish and precision. “It’s just—I can see now. After years of being in a haze, I feel like the fog has faded and I can see that if I don’t try to help people like me, then who will?”
His heart pounded faster than it ever did during an outnumbered fight and his hands were shaking, like they did after a particularly gruesome case, when he’d return to the cave, tear off half his gear and drop before the monitors just to let everything he’d stuffed aside come coursing out.
It was stupid for him to get like this from a fucking interview, a conversation he technically had control of. Clark had even offered to remove the part he’d fumbled, so he could probably call off this entire meeting and send him a sizable check for his time and the wasted opportunity.
He was about to make that offer when Clark’s hand landed on his own, releasing a static spark that made Bruce jerk upright, momentarily thoughtless and unburdened enough drop his jaw and stare at the face that was suddenly very close to his own.
It didn’t help that Clark’s hand was large enough to curl over the width of his palm, a fact he would have found threatening if not for the comforting squeeze it gave his own. “I may not know exactly what it’s like to be you, but I can relate from some aspects, and I can tell you that anything you do now, no matter how small it seems, will make a difference to someone. All you have to do is start somewhere and keep going—and you’ve already started.”
There was no telling where the warmth that had rapidly spread through him had come from, the increased blood flow from the alcohol, the nervous pounding of his heart over this topic, or the hand on his own. If anything, the hand seemed to accelerate the previous two, leaving him barely registering the coolness of the air-conditioned room and desperate to fidget.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him with such thoughtless familiarity. Alfred certainly hadn’t in years, not since he’d effectively stopped being a boy and become a man, and Dick had only taken his hand when it was offered in comfort at the shrink or doctor’s, going in and out of the courthouse, and when he had to lead him through crowds or up the steps before a swarm of shouts and flashing cameras.
The way Harvey Dent had touched him last winter could count, but he knew that nothing that man did, even while giggling drunk, was on pure, mindless instinct. He had cornered him with clear intent, after hours of following him with his eyes from across the room.
On the other hand, Clark did not seem to have much of a clue what impact his touch was having on him, gaze fixed on Bruce’s face, expression so earnest and tender it overwhelmed him.
Nowadays, it was rare that adults were this open with their softer feelings, it was even rarer to see this coming from a man, especially one built like Clark. This should have been an expression saved for his mother on her birthday, his girlfriend as she sat across from him at a romantic dinner, or even his child expressing an adorably silly thought.
It shouldn’t have been aimed at him, not while he was stumbling his way through a serious discussion. But he didn’t have it in him to complain, because past all the initial suspicion and confusion, Bruce found that he liked having that uncomplicated softness aimed his way.
He also liked the way he was being touched right now, with casual yet intimate affection.
When he had once again lagged in his response, Clark started to mirror his condition, outline growing stiff as his face reddened. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—” he ripped off his hand like he’d been burned, rearing back in his seat so he was practically leaning against the other arm of his chair. “I forgot myself for a second there, it won’t happen again.”
Something about that promise struck Bruce as upsetting. Brief and shocking as it was, he had been entertaining the thought of returning that touch, whose absence now left him suddenly cold, his temperature dropping so fast he went from sweating to shuddering.
“It was fine,” he said in a small, embarrassingly high-pitched voice. He had to force a cough to return to his earlier tone. “I don’t mind.”
“There’s no need to be nice about it, I overstepped,” he said nervously, waving his hand aimlessly. “It’s just this whole issue means so much to me and I just...”
Before he could think better of it, Bruce caught Clark’s hand, lowering it back to its prior spot on the arm of his chair and giving it a comforting squeeze, pulse pounding in the twin spots under his jaw. “It’s hard to put a professional distance on things like that. Believe me, I know.”
Clark worried his bottom lip as his gaze flit between their hands and Bruce’s face. “I didn’t screw this up, didn’t I?”
“No more than I did.”
That must have come off as a joke, because he laughed mid-exhalation, relaxing enough to give Bruce’s hand a firm yet comforting squeeze.
He had such warm palms with thick, smooth skin, in oddly great condition for someone who had grown up on a farm and looked like he had made his build in grunt-work. He wondered if this was pure genetic luck or a deceptively dedicated skincare routine.
He wondered if the rest of Clark was just as unblemished, skin uniform and scarless, or if he had a few hidden signs of accidents and determination. He wondered what he did to maintain his form on a reporter’s salary, could this all be kept up on a mid-tier gym membership and discounted protein powder or was he among the blessed few who kept the forms they’d built in their youth all the way into middle age?
He wondered what he’d think of Bruce’s body and the condition it was in.
It took a slight bit of movement from the subject of his distraction for Bruce to one again remember why they were here.
Clark rubbed his thumb over the base of Bruce’s own, from the wrist to the knuckle. “Want to wrap this section up and cool the article down with a couple of more ‘random’ questions?”
Bruce felt his skin prickle where Clark’s tender touch lingered. “Define ‘random’.”
“Oh, you know, a few humanizing beats like ‘What’s your favorite TV show?’ and ‘Who was your favorite fictional character?’”
“Gray Ghost,” he said automatically. “And…Gray Ghost himself.”
Clark’s prior embarrassment dissipated with his intrigue. “Didn’t think you’d be into campy old shows like that.”
“Gray Ghost may be dated but I wouldn’t call it campy,” he said, a bit defensive. He had spent countless hours going to through the series’ DVD collection as a child, one of the last things his father had bought before he’d passed. It had been an inexplicable comfort to him, giving him hope in the idea that any mystery could be solved and any criminal, no matter how slick, could be caught. “It covered a lot of heavy topics in a time that liked to pretend they didn’t exist, a lot of which are still underplayed or ignored today.”
“Is that what attracts you to it, the subject matter rather than the tone?”
“It’s more the idea that someone can grow so frustrated with how the world around him works that he has to take matters into his own hands, even if everyone thinks it pointless or mad,” he explained, getting a little worked up, gesturing with his free hand, though his movements were slower, more reserved than the common gesticulation. “And, against all odds, he does make a difference.”
“Can’t say I ever caught more than a few re-runs as a kid, but your passion for it is a ringing endorsement for a proper binge-watch,” Clark said, thumb still mindlessly stroking Bruce’s. “Gotta say, this love for pulpy superhero shows has me wondering what your thoughts are on Gotham’s own rumored masked vigilante.”
That had to be the last thing Bruce had anticipated being asked about today. He had expected anything among the list of possible on trending topics, persona pitfalls, acquaintances’s actions, unfounded rumors about himself and the gossip and accusations about his family, all gone over in his publicist and PR team’s preparation. But to be asked for his thoughts on his own second life? That surprise ought to make Alfred chuckle.
The issue was, not anticipating this meant that he had no predetermined response to misdirect his company from the subject.
Thoughts on the Bat were polarized to say the least, with some thinking him a lunatic, others finding the wrong kind of inspiration in his actions, and others not quite believing he existed, and if they did, thoughts varied on what he was: an escapee from Arkham, a publicity stunt for the GCPD, a metahuman with shadow powers, an eldritch creature that crawled out of some sulphuric, demonic chasm under Gotham, or, his favorite, a vampire.
Perhaps he should go with his favorite.
“You mean the Batman?” Bruce asked with forced levity, like he found the thought of him amusing. “Are we even sure that thing exists?”
“There have been lots of reports on his actions, and at least one documented case of him out in the open from last year,” Clark pointed out. “You don’t believe he’s real?”
Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe at this point, and if he is more than an urban legend, I doubt he’s from around here, if you know what I mean.”
Clark frowned confusedly. “You mean he’s an alien?”
Now, wouldn’t that have been an interesting thing to uncover about himself? He had a feeling it would have been preferable to his current state of disillusionment.
It did make him want to jump over this bit and demand to know Clark’s thoughts on the actual alien, the true reason he had sought him out. He’d get there now that Clark had given him this point to build off of, he just had to be tactful about it.
“Not in the same sense as your local oddity,” Bruce said. “If you believe all the rumors about him, about how strong he is, how fast he can move, how he manifests from the shadows and can fly, it sure does sound like he’s not from this world.”
“Like a demon?” Clark posed, brows rising from their frown to show his rising interest. “Like he’s some inter-dimensional traveler, or by ‘world’ do you just mean this kind of setting?”
“Both could be true, he could have come into our realm from somewhere else a long time ago and just been more likely to be spotted in rural areas, if not castles abroad.”
Clark huffed out a humored sound. “So, you’re in the camp that the Batman is, in fact, a vampire?”
“Why not?”
“Seems a bit on the nose, doesn’t it?”
“By our modern perspective, sure, but really, what else would something that looks like that be?” Bruce reasoned, trying so hard to be easygoing and casual. “Sometimes things are exactly as they appear to be.”
“So, you’re a fan of using Occam’s razor?”
Split on whether Bruce Wayne would know what that was, or if this could be the start of some kind of investigative trap, Bruce blurted out, “I’m not sure what brand I shave with, my butler buys them for me.”
Clark stared at him blankly for a second then he was steadily overcome by a burst of giggles that rose in volume and intensity until he ended up snorting.
In between the third snort and the gasp of shock, he had ripped his hand from Bruce’s grip to clap it over his mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Bruce followed him, breathing out a raspy, rusty sound that could have been called giggling. “Was it that funny?”
Clark lowered his hand, flush tinging the middle of his face. “Just wasn’t expecting it, is all.”
In what he hoped was a smooth segue into his desired discussion, Bruce said, “One would think you’d be used to the unexpected, living in Metropolis and getting the chance to talk to the most important person there.”
For a further moment of slipping professionalism, Clark grew very stiff and his face fell into wide-eyed, firm-mouthed distress.
Curiosity flared up through him, like a stove fire being raised beneath a sizzling pot. What had happened during his time with the subject Bruce had breached? And had it happened during their interview or between then and now? What had the alien done to what was possibly the one person who knew what he was like in private?
“What is it?” Just as Clark pulled himself together and tried waving it off, Bruce briefly lost it enough to demand an answer. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. What happened?”
“It’s hardly appropriate to bring up at the moment—”
“I think that’s for me to decide,” he said firmly. “Whatever it is, you don’t have to worry. I’m sure I can help.”
“I’m not if you can in my case, or if there will be a need for any help because so far nothing’s happened,” he said nervously. “I haven’t been sent packing and blacklisted just yet.”
Bewilderment brought Bruce’s brows right over his widening eyes. “You’re more worried about your job than your life?”
Clark seemed taken aback. “You think he’d have me killed for—for that?”
“I wouldn’t put much past something we know so little about.”
He chuckled humorlessly, face aimed at his drink, but his eyes sliding up to meet Bruce’s gaze. “And I wouldn’t think he’s ‘something we know little about’ when you’re both basically the same thing.”
It felt like all the blood in his head had plummeted to his heels, leaving him overcome by chills and feeling the room seesaw around him.
How did he know? What had given it away? Had he known this entire time? Was he here to tell him that and ask for some kind of hush money?
He had to do something, but before he’d resort to threats, he had to try playing dumb.
“How am I and Superman the same thing? Does he resemble me up close or something?”
Clark straightened, upper half of his face scrunched up while the lower half wobbled up, like he was torn between two reactions, settling in the middle with perplexed amusement. “Superman? I’m talking about Lex Luthor!”
Oh. That made more sense. It really should have been the first thought he’d jumped to when Clark mentioned being blackballed. Or it would have, if Bruce had thought of himself as something akin to Lex and therefore prone to enough of his habits to think of them first, rather than being in the same vein of crimefighter as the Superman.
Bruce loosened his steadying grip on his chair, allowing the color to flood back into his whitened knuckles. “Did something happen the night we met?”
He nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, I got to interview him right after you left. He seemed really eager for my company that night, so I had to jump at the chance.”
Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if Lex had done what he was doing right now, dangled the promise of another career-marking exclusive in exchange for information on the alien. The question was, what did Lex plan to do with such intel?
Whatever his reason was, Bruce doubted it was good.
“What did he say to you?” Bruce nudged. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing!” Clark denied a little too loudly. “Well, nothing like you’re thinking.”
Sighing out frustratedly, Clark ran a hand through his hair, briefly pushing it off his face so it could bounce back into place with a distracting efficiency, like each curl was a coiled spring. He only knew what his own hair felt like, had hands-on information on how its particular physics worked, and found himself wondering that texture would feel like under his palm.
This preoccupation must have been stoked by whatever cinders of fondness he was developing towards this man, it also made him feel personally concerned about what his unwitting competition had done to get their mutual target so unsettled.
“You can tell me anything, you know,” he offered, measured, calm, aiming for the understanding he’d approached Dick with under the advice of the first therapist they’d been put in contact with. “I might be able to help a lot more than you’d think.”
After a moment of conflicted looks around them, like he were expecting to spot eavesdroppers, Clark leaned in and quietly said, “He drank throughout our interview, and, once we were done, he offered me a ride home in his limo, and there he started getting a little…personal with me.”
“As in, he told you things he’d dug up about you? Things he could use to get you do what he wanted?” Bruce asked.
Clark let out a brief, nervous laugh before he caught himself and shook his head. “No, but he might think that I have that kind of blackmail now.”
So, Clark could have some image-altering information on both his local billionaire and superhero?
Sighing uncomfortably, Clark seemed to have reached the end of whatever debate he was having with himself, and decided to confide in Bruce. “He…he came on to me.”
“Came…on to you?” Bruce echoed, stumped. “As in he flirted with you?”
“Well, he did more than that,” Clark clarified. “He started touching me and then he kissed me.”
He had heard of the lengths competitors would go for corporate espionage, but he’d never thought that the figurehead himself would resort to such desperate, risky methods to get his coveted information, especially when it seemingly had nothing to do with his capital gains.
Unless Lex had a plan that warranted a deeper investigation, something whose seeds laid with the few public hints he’d made at his disapproval of Superman. Bruce wouldn’t put it past Lex to have been the source behind a few of the more interesting threats the alien had spared Metropolis from, namely ones that had felt designed to lure him into a trap.
Still, why had he led with…that in his efforts with Clark? Surely he could have led with money or opportunities or even a contract to write his memoir! What had made Lex jump straight to kissing Clark during a limo ride?
Bruce he couldn’t find a better way to piece together the answer he needed than to ask for further context. He knew it seemed like he was invested in the act itself, but he just wanted to know the logic behind it, and what it had led to.
“Did he have any reason to do that or did this come out of nowhere?”
“I don’t think I can answer that, considering how much he’d had to drink,” Clark sighed, scratching his cheek. “I mean, there was this tension, this mood we’d fallen into throughout the interview, but I didn’t think anything would come of it, y’know?”
“And what happened when something did come of it? Did he panic when he came to his senses?”
“I didn’t give him the chance,” Clark said, shifting in his seat, hands turning up in half-hearted distress. “I kind of threw myself out of the car to get away from him.”
Bruce had to swallow the startled laugh that rose at that visual, passing it off as a cough. “That would have certainly hurt his feelings.”
“Yeah, I’ve kind of been waiting to see if he forgot about that night or if he’s going to bring it back up when he signs off on the final draft of the interview,” Clark said. “That’s if he still wants it to go out.”
“If he’s petty enough to withhold it because of a mistake he made, then that’s his loss,” Bruce assured him.
Clark was unconvinced. “It’s a loss for me, too. He’s never talked to a paper like the Planet.”
“Don’t worry, something tells me he isn’t done with you just yet.”
“So, he’s definitely going to come threaten me to keep that ‘indiscretion’ to myself?” Clark asked, somewhat jokingly.
“If he does, you can tell me and I can deal with it or any issues you suddenly start having at work,” he offered. “Besides, talking to him won’t be as much of a boost for the Planet or as rare for the masses who’ll pick it up as making first contact with Superman.”
That seemed to relax him, one side of his mouth curving up in a tired smirk, it brought out the chiseled dimple in his cheek. “That’s funny, ‘first contact’.”
“Isn’t that basically what you did?”
The smirk grew into a secretive smile, eyes oddly avoidant, not out of the prior discomfort or even fear, but something softer, warmer, a feeling Bruce couldn’t quite read yet. “I mean, I didn’t go up to his spaceship and shake hands with him like Zefram Cochrane.”
The peculiar name tickled at the corner of Bruce’s memory, urging him to pursue it until he latched onto some context and responded, slow and uncertain, “The guy from Star Trek: First Contact?”
Pleasant surprise regained him Clark’s focus. “Gray Ghost and Star Trek, what other surprising things are you into?”
“That depends on what you consider surprising at this point,” Bruce said, casual, friendly. “I fear I’m quite dull compared to your last two subjects.”
Clark eyed him pensively, a knowing glint in his eyes, somehow vivid through the distortion of those bulky glasses. “Something tells me you’re selling yourself short.”
The way he’d said it, not with empty flattery or investigative suspicion, left Bruce at a bit of a loss, as while his mind stalled for what to respond with, he felt his instinctual reaction taking root as a fast-spreading, prickling warmth along his skin, like fading numbness.
A charged silence stretched between them, not tense, not awkward, but still weighty and uncertain.
Clark broke it first, sitting back up straight and picking up his pen to meaningfully tap his notepad. “I take it that last chunk is going to be left out?”
“It’s probably for the best.”
“Shame,” Clark tutted. “I wanted to keep that part of you comparing me to such an impactful historical figure.”
“You could, if you could write around it and just link us talking about Gray Ghost and the Batman to you contacting Superman” he suggested, following the lifeline Clark had thrown him back to his initial goal. “Speaking of which, how did you manage that anyway?”
Clark energetically wiggled the pen between the two fingers that held it. “Would you believe me if I said it was pure happenstance?”
“You mean he chose you at random?”
“More like I was at the right place at the right time,” he said, that secretive smirk back, his whole demeanor signaling that there was more than what he was letting on, something in a similar context to Lex trying to loosen his tongue with his own.
He didn’t know why that fact bothered him. It wasn’t any more exploitative or manipulative than threatening Clark’s career or even his life.
“Can you tell me how it all happened anyway?” Bruce asked. “I’m sure there are some parts of that meeting that got left out of what eventually made it to the front page?”
“Jeez, Bruce, buy me dinner first before you ask for all the dirty details,” Clark joked.
At least, Bruce thought he was joking. There was something about how he got at the mention of Superman, the elusive, almost playful air that descended over him…
Dirty details.
“All right. What would you like for dinner?”
Clark goggled at him. “Are you joking?”
“Unlikely, I’ve been told I don’t have a sense of humor.”
“Who had the guts to say that to your face?”
“I’ll tell you in exchange for you telling me something equally confidential.”
He really must have thought Bruce was mostly joking, because he chuckled as he shook his head. “You know what? Why not? Give me a few more questions to wrap this up and then you can grill me over dinner.”
Relief released the tension in his jaw and shoulders. “Go on.”
“Uhhh, okay, threading the topic of your charity work and causes, your love of old-school detectives, your theories on the Batman, and calling me breaking Superman’s silence ‘first contact’, care to tell me your thoughts on him and those compared to him?”
This was one of the expected questions for public figures, and his response should be something along the lines of “No comment,” but that might lose him whatever openness Clark was treating him with. He still needed to ask him about Poison Ivy as well.
“Are we talking metahumans in general, or just the ones that become superheroes?”
“Both, if your thoughts on each differ.”
“Of course they do.”
Clark gestured for him to elaborate.
Bruce threw back the rest of his drink and braced himself for what ought to be the official end of this interview. “As a human, I am wary of people with superpowers in general, especially ones who can’t be easily held accountable or even taken down when they go rogue,” he prefaced, the loosening warmth from the last of his drink dulling the nerves he’d been operating under so far. “We don’t know how many of them there are out there, or have reports on how powerful some can get, and how big of a threat they can be, or that many known, efficient weaknesses they have that can be used to disarm them if they become a danger to others. We didn’t even know anything about Superman until you sought him out, and he seems to be in a superior category to the average homegrown meta.”
Clark nodded, though his agreement felt a bit reluctant. “Are you worried about Superman becoming a threat?”
Yes, he was, but he couldn’t say that, not without quantifiable proof. Until then, he just had to have a defense ready, just in case.
“I’d rather not assume the worst in someone who has, so far, only offered help,” he said tactfully. “It’s just a general worry I have of anyone who holds that much more power than whole groups of people.”
“Even regular humans who are in that position?” Clark asked, not quite accusatory, but pointed nonetheless. “Humans like yourself?”
“Especially them,” Bruce said. “But just so I don’t come off as too much of a hypocrite, I will say that just because a handful of them do choose to abuse their powers, doesn’t mean they all need to be kept at arm’s length or treated with suspicion, or even put on a registry.”
“Then how do you suggest for them to be held accountable, or discouraged from criminal activity, if they’re not monitored closely?”
“Ideally, there would be a force made up of those on their level or above it to deal with them when they become threats,” he said. “Just as individual heroes and vigilantes do now for their cities, but more organized and efficient.”
The thought soothed whatever worry Bruce’s initial response had stirred in Clark, reinstating his earlier curious amusement. “Like the Justice League of America used to be?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Maxwell Lord, the CEO of LordTech has been sponsoring certain heroes to deal with certain emergencies on his behalf. Could you see Wayne Enterprises doing something like that in the future?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Would this group of heroes be only for supernatural threats?”
Bruce thought of Lex Luthor, and similar men who had gotten too drunk on their own unchecked power throughout history and committed great crimes, if not wide-scale atrocities. He thought of himself, and the people he’d inadvertently inspired. He thought of how Gotham was certainly not done spawning dangerous but wholly mortal monsters, and how he might eventually need to ask for someone’s support.
“No, in the spirit of being fair they should be able to lay the hammer of justice on both the likes of Max Mercury and myself,” he said, before adding. “That’s if they can catch either of us.”
That earned him a bright, relieved grin that felt so unburdened and so genuine that he couldn’t help but return it, though not nearly with the same width and intensity.
“Well, I can tell you that after today, I certainly hope neither you, nor any superheroes turn against us, because I’d very sad to see you taken down,” Clark said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’ve really enjoyed this little unexpected chat and hope to do a followup soon.”
Hope flared in Bruce’s chest, setting the groundwork for further meetings he could use to subtly interrogate Clark Kent, be it for what he currently knew or any updates on the subjects Bruce needed to have thorough files on, be it Lex, Poison Ivy or Superman.
Besides, talking to him was easier than he’d anticipated, he could use any upcoming reunions as practice for socialization. It was usually best to regain lost skills or build new ones in safe, predictable environments, and Clark’s presence seemed to be one of them.
“So, what you’re saying is that you can’t wait to see me again?”
He didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but Clark took it as another purposeful joke, or even an attempt at flirting. Bruce couldn’t yet tell which impression he wanted him to go with in this case.
“Let’s see how well that dinner goes first,” Clark said, before leaning over his phone and declaring, “This has been Clark Kent, for the Daily Planet. Thank you for talking to me today, Mr. Wayne.”
“Thank you for listening,” Bruce said sincerely.
Clark tapped his phone, ending the interview and then visibly deflating, with a dip in his posture and a loud breath out. “Don’t take this personally, but, man, was that nerve-wracking.”
To try and maintain the impression that he did know how to joke, or at least practice an attempt on it, Bruce told him, “Don’t take this personally, but the feeling is mutual.”
Putting everything back in his bag and pockets, Clark got to his feet before Bruce did, looking down at him with an easy quirk to his lips. “So, apart from that, did I make it good for you?”
Briefly at a loss, Bruce blinked at him. “What?”
“Since this is first time doing this, I wanted to know if I do good job?” Clark asked, caught between nervous unease and eager impatience. “Was this what you expected out of this whole encounter? Was it better? Worse?”
“Than…?”
“Whatever you had in mind,” he answered hurriedly, talking with the fingers of the hand that held his bag’s strap to his shoulder. “Did I prove your reluctance to do this, or was it worth the wait?”
There was no reason for Bruce’s mind to fully go in that direction, not when the innuendo was almost certainly accidental. That didn’t mean he couldn’t press to see if Clark did hear what he did.
“It wasn’t what I expected, no,” he rasped, only to stop and swallow to loosen the tightness in his throat. “You were great. I’m glad you were my first.”
This time, Clark did pick up on how this entire exchange sounded, cheeks coloring deeply. “So, I didn’t put you off doing this again?”
“Not if it’s with you, no,” he said. “Can’t say the same for anyone else.”
Clark ducked his head bashfully, biting his flushed lip. “I hope you’re not just telling me what I want to hear.”
“What what I gain from doing that?”
“Theoretically, more of my time,” he said, half-joking. “So…dinner?”
Before they’d excited the establishment, Bruce had fired off a text to Alfred, telling him to quickly pick a spot ideal for them to continue any part of their prior conversation, and then offered Clark the door.
Clark hesitated, eyeing the car and then Bruce.
He must have been thinking about the last time a billionaire he’d interviewed had offered him a ride.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he told him.
“No, I—I didn’t mean to—I’m just—” Clark covered his face, using that as an excuse to readjust his glasses. “Just keep wondering what that was about.”
Not lingering on that point further, Clark slid into the backseat.
“You and me both,” Bruce murmured, slipping in after him.
“So, where’re we going?” Clark asked, peering at Alfred, lightly drumming on the bag on his lap. “I’d recommend a place, but I don’t know if you’d like it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not the kind of place you can park your car in, we’d have to go in on foot.” Clark glanced back at him, teasing. “And I don’t know if those shiny shoes are made for walking.”
It was a jab at the cost as well as the style of what Bruce was wearing. Clark must have been craving something he thought wouldn’t measure up to his palate. Part of him knew that he had an image to build and maintain now, and that he should play into that impression, but he wanted to prove Clark wrong. He wanted Clark to like him, to get comfortable around him, and that wouldn’t happen if he didn’t try appeasing him.
“Try me,” he told him. “Tell us where you want to go.”
Clark leaned in to discuss the address with Alfred and once the traffic lights changed, he sat back, still playing with his bag, channeling some persistent anxiety. He kept sneaking looks at Bruce the whole ride over, making him even more desperate to know what was going on in his head.
The car stopped up the street from where Clark had directed, allowing Alfred to park while they got out and walked towards the Crimson Clover Smokehouse, a small shop with a forgettable façade, gingham curtains and a doorway painted the teal of oxidized bronze.
A bell rang over the door as they entered, finding a relatively small space, but most of the small selection of tables were packed. The place looked like it hadn’t been updated in maybe twenty years, not outside a few maintenance tweaks, but it smelled like heavily seasoned meats.
Bruce had passed by his fair share of hole-in-the-wall restaurants, but he never saw the point in going in unless he was staking out a suspect, or scanning for a rumored lead. He rarely ate to sate specific cravings or to explore cuisines, and usually just took whatever was in front of him the moment he grew hungry, usually at Alfred’s behest.
His apparent inexperience with public dining must have added to whatever impression Clark had built of him so far. “I know this isn’t the fine dining you must be used to, but there’s no need to be so suspicious.” He gestured for him to sit across from him, dropping his bag over the back of his chair. “It’s good, trust me.”
Figuring he needed to get comfortable, Bruce took off his jacket and loosened his tie as he sat across from Clark. “So, what’s good here?”
“If you want something a bit light, the wings and wedges are good. There’s also Cobb salad they put pretty much everything in, though I don’t know if I’d call it a healthier alternative,” Clark said, turning the menu his way helpfully. “I usually get the barbecue ribs or the pulled pork sandwich.”
Bruce waved it off. “Pick for me.”
“You sure?”
“You told me to trust you,” he said with an encouraging smile. “I’m trusting you.”
Maybe it was the summer afternoon light coming through the windows here, or the fact that the interview ending made him grow more comfortable, but his grin seemed brighter now, somehow.
He wondered if this smile was what had disarmed Superman and endeared him into giving his first interview. He wondered if the open friendliness was what had emboldened Lex Luthor to lead with whatever the hell he had tried with him.
Clark did all of the talking while their waitress kept staring at Bruce. She clearly recognized him, he had been in the news a lot the past few months and amassed a curious but plentiful following online for his status and appearance alone, and he didn’t doubt that she was among them.
He could hear her phone snapping a picture of him once she’d left with their orders. He knew this was just the start of this kind of behavior again, but it hadn’t been this common or brazenly invasive and as quick when he’d been a child with cameras shoved in his face.
If this dinner was a way to practice being charming company, he needed to also use it as a feeler for his public persona. Perhaps him turning up in normal, unexpected spots like this will soften any harsh perceptions of him.
The waitress hurriedly returned with the drinks, nearly sloshing some liquid off the tops of the big glasses as she came to a stop by them and slowly set them down, taking her time committing every bit of him to memory in a ludicrously obvious way.
Clark made a noise at the back of his throat that snapped her out of her trance, and she rushed off again. He settled back with his pink lemonade, stirring its generous amount of ice with his straw before taking a contemplative sip. “This happen a lot?”
“It is now that people know what I look like as an adult.” Bruce sighed as he tried what Clark had ordered for him, a tangy peach iced tea, something Alfred would wrinkle his nose at. “It’s due to increase as I ‘get back out there’. Not sure how I will be able to handle it in the long-run.”
“You can take notes from the others in your position,” he suggested. “Ted Kord is very distant and only shows up to talk about his new products, so barely anyone knows what he looks like. Oliver Queen is more of a socialite and a representative of his company, rather than as an active and in-charge presence in it. Maxwell Lord is leaning into the whole eccentric innovator thing, sponsoring a whole bunch of others and sharing the public focus with them.”
Chewing on his straw, Bruce couldn’t help asking, “And Lex?”
Clark swallowed his gasp with an uneasy, audible gulp. “He’s in the middle of them all, and is probably the most distinctive apart from Queen. He’s also very hands-on at his company it seems, and is well-versed in his causes and pet projects, just enough that his dedication feels genuine.”
“Which do you recommend I act like?”
“Am I getting put on the Wayne Enterprises PR payroll for this?” he joked.
A humored puff left Bruce’s nose as he drank. “I don’t know if you’re qualified for that.”
“Then what’s the point of asking my advice?”
He should have just brushed it off as making conversation or general curiosity, but instead he told him, “Maybe I just like hearing you talk.”
Clark’s briefly mouth fell open but he gathered himself just as Bruce registered what he’d just said. “In the sense that you’re easy to talk to.”
“I should hope so, it’s part of my job.” Clark brought his chair further in so he could rest his elbows on the table and lean in further towards Bruce, not quite for privacy or to be heard better, but seemingly so nothing else would be the focus of his frame of vision. Being watched this intently was never a good sign, but the fearful, predatory essence typical of such attention didn’t weigh on Bruce, if anything it felt more like Clark was trying to figure something out.
Bruce shouldn’t want anyone to find him interesting, the last thing he needed was anything being warranted a closer look, but panic hadn’t yet dragged its claws through him. If anything, he could blame his heightened pulse and tense anticipation on feeling thrilled. Why? He wasn’t quite sure yet.
“What?”
“Just debating if you’d like hearing what I’d have to say.”
“I already told you I did,” Bruce argued.
“No, you didn’t, not quite.” Clark tilted his head, eyeing him from another angle. “But to give you any kind of answer, I’ll need to know what you’re comfortable with doing.”
“I’ll do whatever needs to be done to get the desired result,” he said plainly, which was a fact about himself, because God knows he had put himself through some damaging situations just to get what he’d needed.
“Yeah, but we’re talking about something you need to be able to maintain in the long-term, without burnout and resentment and going off the rails and undoing any and all hard work,” Clark said. “You probably have more control over how you’re perceived than most people, but still, getting them to see you a certain way when they’re prone to think the worst these days…that’s going to be tough. It will need at least two focal points of your public persona that you can genuinely commit to so they can be constants in your life and tied to your name.”
“Like?”
“Like what we talked about in your interview, your personal stake in children's wellbeing, especially in and around Gotham, charitable causes in general that don’t seem insincere or cloying or picked for you by a PR handler,” Clark explained.
“What’s the second focal point?”
“Something to give you a kind of personal brand, like an odd hobby or a quirk you can share for more humanizing efforts like further interviews or posts on your official accounts,” he suggested. “Which I am now realizing I should have asked you about earlier. People would love to know what you’re like in that sense.”
“We talked about what shows I liked,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but not other stuff like your favorite book series or if you liked any new music lately or if you collect anything or had a favorite subject at school.”
“Do the people want to know all those insignificant facts or do you?”
“They’re not insignificant when it’s someone like you.”
“Would you ask Superman these questions to help people not ‘think the worst’ of him?”
“Sure, if I can catch him again,” Clark said, like the idea wasn’t too far-fetched. “Having a list of further questions for him would be helpful, since I played it pretty safe the first time.”
“I still want to know all the details of that night,” he said, feeling like he’s been patient and calm about this long enough. “It couldn’t have been all due to coincidence, you must have done something to get his attention and cooperation.”
“Something like what?” Clark asked him, light, daring.
That was what Bruce had yet to figure out. Theoretically, this establishment of a connection between Clark Kent and Superman was mutually beneficial, a career-defining interview in exchange for a carefully-crafted introduction to soothe the masses.
Basically, what he had just done. Except, he had clear ulterior motives and so did Lex Luthor. So, why did Superman go after this reporter in particular? What did Clark do to convince him?
“You tell me,” Bruce said. “I’m just wondering, whatever it is you did to get him talking, have you bothered doing it for me?”
Clark snorted softly, seeming too pleased with himself. “Easy, I don’t give everything on the first date.”
“That’s not what this is,” he said, thoughtless, hurried. He had to cringe at himself. “I meant, I’m not doing whatever Lex did. I’m not like that.”
For some reason, Clark seemed a little disappointed. “I never said you were.”
Their food came at an opportune moment, the waitress setting Clark’s steaming, spicy barbecue ribs before him with far less grace and care than she did for Bruce’s smoked sampler.
She lingered, still staring at him, until Clark loudly said, “Thank you!”
Clark made a show of rolling up his sleeves before he got to work, pulling apart his ribs and starting to eat them. Bruce wasn’t going to pretend to be grossed out by the effort, but there was something oddly arresting about the visual. The way his fingers moved, not caring that the meat was steaming hot and that the sauce was getting everywhere, and the way he shoved entire chunks into his mouth with half his fingers and removed the bones, clean and separate, all the while openly savoring each piece like he hadn’t eaten in days.
The indulgent enjoyment, the way he closed his eyes as he sucked on the tips of his fingers, and moaned at the taste. Bruce couldn’t remember ever seeing such an expression up close, or if he had ever heard anyone moan with his own ears from anything other than pain.
Had Superman seen Clark like this? Had this expressiveness been part of the allure? Had this carefree energy been what attracted the alien to him?
He didn’t notice that he was just sitting there, holding his knife and fork, until Clark covered his mouth and mumbled, “Something wrong?”
Shaking his head, he got started. The variety included sausages, brisket, pulled pork, ribs and cornbread. It was more generous with the seasonings than Alfred’s dishes usually were, and he had to cough when he ended up inhaling the burnt crust off a piece of meat.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
They ate in relative silence, and the further it went on, the more Bruce felt like he had thrown off what his whole plan had hinged on.
He didn’t know how to proceed for the rest of the meal. He waited until Clark went to wash his hands to pay the bill and debated dipping out and regrouping for another attempt later. But he figured that disappearing would probably make whatever note they’d already left off on even more sour.
Maybe he needed a fresh start, another meeting in a more private setting. He’d already expressed enjoying Clark’s company, so it wouldn’t be unthinkable that he’d ask for them to meet again soon, purely to socialize. Then he could figure out a better way to finesse what he needed from him.
He was due to spend the next week being involved in the Martha Wayne Foundation’s first charity event of the season. He could invite Clark to cover it and then come back with him for a nightcap—
No, that was too close to what Lex had tried. It would spook him. An afterparty then? He could stomach hosting one of those on the ground floor of the manor, and perhaps, if Clark indulged in the champagne and the chatter, he’d feel more comfortable and talk more freely about his greatest accomplishment.
His mind had been made up when Clark met him at the door. “Hey. Sorry I took so long, there’s only one bathroom here.”
“I figured, with how small this place is,” he grumbled, holding the door open for him. “How did you find this place anyway?”
“Oh, you know.” He waved around aimlessly.
“No, I don’t.”
Clark shrugged, though the effort felt forced, like whatever memory tied to this place’s discovery bothered him. “I kind of…used to come look around Gotham when I ran out of places to explore in Metropolis.”
“You ran out of places in Metropolis in the few years you’ve been here for work?”
“No, I started before that.”
“When you were in university?”
Clark stiffened, like he had remembered something disturbing. “Yeah, I guess.”
Bruce had to put a pin in that. If he had done anything worth looking into before he’d graduated, then he could dig into it later.
Alfred slowly drove up to them and Bruce once again opened the door. “Where do you live?”
“You’re not seriously offering to drive me back to Metropolis?”
“Why not? It’s not that far.”
He shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not, I’m offering.”
Clark threw his arm out behind him. “It’s no big deal, I’m just going to take the metro again.”
He was either being polite or he wanted to get away from him. Both did not bode well for the interpersonal effort Bruce was trying to make here.
Though apologizing was not in his nature and tasted very bitter on his tongue, he had to get things back on track somehow. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable today.”
“No! No, you didn’t!” Clark raised his hands, warding him off. “If anything, I felt like I may have overexerted you and that you probably need some alone time to recharge or something.”
“You didn’t. I thought you would, but our time together has been surprisingly a pleasant experience,” he said, seeking out his eyes. “I’d actually like to do this again.”
“You mean you want me to write another piece for you or the company?”
“You could, if you want,” Bruce said, starting to weave his next stage of the plan in. “The charity event later this week, there will most likely be a party after, my first as a host. I’m sure the Planet is already sending someone to cover it, but you could come, as a guest.”
Clark’s outline softened. “I’ve never been off-the-clock at a party like that and don’t know if I can. I’ll probably badger some other guests for quotes.”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as you get to come.”
“Why though?” Clark asked him, uncertain. “I make that great of an impression?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly, earning him a surprised laugh. “It’s also my first party and I doubt I will handle it how I’m supposed to, so, I think having someone there who already knows what to expect from me will help make this experience less…”
“Scary?”
“I was going to say suffocating, but, yes.”
“Okay,” Clark said, brightening. “Can I bring a plus-one?”
“Who?”
“If she’s not sent to work on the event, Lois Lane. She’d kill me if I went to Bruce Wayne’s first-ever party without her,” he said, an overwhelming fondness padding his tone, and a self-conscious weight tugging his gaze down to the side, like he was hiding something.
It was similar to his body language at any mention of Superman, as if he were conflicted about them in the same way.
The simplest answer would be that Clark pined for his co-worker, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Bruce had gone through her articles and wondered why Superman hadn’t chosen her for his introduction, she was sharp, she was experienced, she was witty and she was striking, if not plain beautiful.
He needed to figure out what it was about Clark that made him so different before he started pacing frustrated grooves into the floor.
“You can bring whoever you want.”
Mood lifted, Clark allowed them to at least drop him off at the metro station, where he waved them off with a promise to send Bruce his draft of the interview as soon as possible.
He’d already gotten the actual party put into gear by the time they returned home, and had the public relations team at WE handle the rest for him. He had to respond to a handful of questioning texts throughout his monitor duty at the cave and the last thing he’d signed off on before heading out to patrol was an invite for Lex Luthor and his sister, Lena.
Figuring it would be a good opportunity to get an idea on what Lex was up to, he approved the invite and forgot about it until the day of the party had come.
The interview had released right before the event and party, giving an ideal boost in publicity to the charity event, and maximizing the official start to his public persona. A cursory sweep of social media yielded mostly positive reactions, with his growing fanbase reveling in certain quotes, both from Bruce's speech and Clark's descriptions of him, while a handful of detractors called him the usual names and questioned if anything he'd said was genuine or drafted by a publicist.
It was a great start, all in all. What was left was to start making broader impressions in person, and start being photographed in controlled environments, like galas, parties, events like the one he'd hosted.
Naturally, he spent the whole time frigid with awkwardness, barely able to register the faces of most of the people he’d been introduced to, and trying not to react to the relatable complaints and snickering judgments Dick had made about the guests the whole night.
By the time he had started falling asleep and had to be carried out by Bruce, the event had thankfully ended and Bruce had finally caught sight of Clark and his co-workers, Lois and Jimmy.
Seeing him one-on-one was somehow different than spotting him amongst dozens of others, where he seemed oddly out-of-place, towering over the majority despite not being that large. His cheap blue suit hung off of his broad frame, he had made no effort to tame his hair, and he stood with a slight hunch as he listened intently to whoever was speaking to him, and his drink remained at the same level the whole time. He looked as uncomfortable as Bruce had felt.
Yet, when he approached him, it was almost as if Clark had sensed his presence and he perked up, staring directly at him and breaking out into a broad, welcoming grin that had Bruce briefly struck dumb.
Perhaps it was because this was the only genuine expression this room had seen all night, or because he wasn’t used to seeing anyone this happy to see him, but that mere spread of his lips and crinkling of his eyes filled his head with white noise, rendering the next two hours a blur.
Without much fuss, they joined him on the ride back to the manor, where Jimmy was starstruck and had repeatedly called Bruce 'sir', and Lois had ignored them in favor of standing in the sunroof and observing the visitable parts of Gotham from the safety of the limousine.
While Bruce spent the ride quiet and readying himself for hours of continued acting back at the manor, Clark had spent that time listening to Dick chatter about a cartoon he had started watching, engaging with him like he were actually about to go home and watch it himself.
He wished he knew how to talk to Dick like this. He was trying, but everything he did or said came out painfully stiff and borderline inhuman. Some days if it felt like he was better off leaving him alone completely rather than trying to make small-talk or tell him what to do.
It didn’t help that Dick still wanted to join him on cases and kept breaking into the cave when he should have been sleeping. He seemed to think that this was either a hobby or a purpose or even some kind of distraction and Bruce wished it were that simple.
Eager and curious, his guests showed up a lot earlier than he’d imagined they would. He had barely bid Dick goodnight before he’d gone down to find the place packed with guests and servers, and he could barely recognize most of them.
At some point during his distressed roaming, where he circumvented huddled groups and observed them all from a careful distance, somebody had decided to seek him out, and—to his disappointment—it wasn’t Clark.
“Really, Boo-Boo? I had to get a formal invite from your assistant?”
Kate Kane, his elder cousin, and the only relative who hadn’t kept him at an arm’s length since the Riddler’s actions, had blocked his path. He hadn’t seen her in months, not since last December probably, where she had left him to fend for himself at a fundraiser they had both been invited to and gone home with a lawyer. Since he’d last seen her, she’d shorn her vivid, dark red hair to match his length and gained some weight that rounded her face, lessening the striking resemblance between them, limiting it to their green eyes, angular brows and thin, sharp mouths.
In what could be called ‘business casual’, Kate wore half an emerald pantsuit, just its blazer and trousers, and had her hands shoved in her pockets as she leaned into his space, brow quirked to emphasize her scrutiny.
“Your name was on the guest list,” he explained. “How else did you want to get it?”
Scowling at him she briefly removed one hand to smack his chest, her row of thick, gold bracelets clacking against his vest's buttons. “Pick up the phone and call me? You know how to do that, right?”
He exhaled through his nose. “You know I don’t like talking over the phone.”
“Then text me, genius!”
“Fine. I’ll extend a personal invitation next time.”
“Yeah, you better.” Kate glanced around as she huddled closer. “So, you’re socializing, you’re talking to the press, you’re throwing parties, and you have a kid. Any other radical developments I get to hear from others, or do you have something for me to share with Mom and Beth at the next family brunch?”
If he knew how to make jokes, and make them land clearly, he would have considered bluntly telling her that he also went out to fight crime several nights a months. But instead, at the mention of him talking to the press, he glanced in Clark’s direction, finding him and Lois talking to the Gotham Gazette’s Vicki Vale. She must have approached him to ask why he, rather than her or anyone on her level, had gotten Bruce’s first interview. He wanted to go warn her off him, or to eavesdrop on their conversation, or to just make an excuse that broke off their conversation and pretend he needed Clark in private.
To be fair, he kind of did want to talk to him in private. He would make it seem like he wanted to discuss the reception of their interview and then extend an offer to hang out casually this week. He just hadn’t figured out how to approach him in a way that wouldn’t alarm him yet, or tip him off that he wanted something apart from his company.
Kate followed his line of sight, so close their cheeks almost brushed. “If a backless dress has got you this distracted then you really need to get laid soon.”
He jerked back, putting a slight distance back between them. “What are you on about?”
“Vicki? Her dress is almost down to her ass-crack?” Kate looked from him and back in the direction he was aimed at. “Unless you’re ogling her new friend. In which case, I don’t blame you.”
“Didn’t think he was your type,” he said before he could rethink it, slamming his mouth shut too late and too hard, his teeth clacking together.
To anyone else, this would have sounded like a bit of snark, but not to someone who knew what he was like. Kate knew that he had given something away, and while she might never know why he was focused on Clark, she did now know something was up, and it was far too late for him to misdirect and act like he too was taken by the generous cleavage offered by the halter top of Lois Lane’s indigo gown.
“No,” she said slowly. “But he seems to be yours.”
“He’s not,” he said immediately. “I just wanted to talk to him about something.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” she said interestedly, crossing her arms. “Tell you what, let’s launch a targeted attack, you go have your ‘private talk’ with the big nerd and I swoop in and pick up the slack, see which one is a few drinks away from doing the same with me.”
He really didn’t like the idea that anyone, namely Clark, would think his need for a quiet chat was code for something more opportunistic, or salacious. “It’s not like that, and you know it.”
“Do I?” Kate hummed, looking back at him interestedly. “Have I known you to ever have a girlfriend? Or hookups even?”
“You don’t know everything about me.”
“I know everything that matters,” she pointed out. “Also, Mom gets updates on you from Alfred, and I think he would have mentioned if there was a chance at a next generation of Waynes.” She paused, rethinking something. “Well, a next generation the regular way. The bit about you adopting as a single man has got a lot of chins wagging.”
“I’m well aware,” he said dully. “Why does any of this matter?”
“It doesn’t,” she said, offering him a small smile. “I’m just saying, I’m the last person you have to worry about this kind of stuff with.”
“I have nothing to worry about, because it’s not like that!” he hissed. “I just need to talk to him about something.”
She seemed unconvinced. “Mhm. Mind telling me who this very interesting conversationalist is?”
“A reporter for the Daily Planet, the one who did my interview.”
Her brows rose. “Superman guy?”
“Yes.”
“You had that much fun getting interrogated by him or something?”
He knew that this was some lowball way to get a clear answer on why he had singled out this man out of all of their seemingly more interesting guests tonight, but he did not have the energy to keep dodging her in circles, and he frankly saw no point in denying a half-truth.
“I actually did,” he told her. “It went a lot better than I had expected, and I enjoyed his company.”
“Enjoyed his company how exactly?”
Bruce shrugged. “We finished the interview and then had dinner.”
She blinked at him expectantly. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You just…had a good time and now want to be friends with this guy?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
She snorted over a dismissive laugh. “Well, yeah. When was the last time you had anything close to a friend apart from myself?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m trying to make one now.”
“But with a reporter, Boo Boo?” She removed her hands from her pockets to gesture around. “Couldn’t go for someone less likely to leak our dirt to his employer? Or someone similar you can have mutual blackmail on?”
“Like who?” he asked, more of a dare than an actual request. "Who would meet your standards, Kit Kat?"
The use of the childish nickname pleased her.
“Like—oh, speak of the devil.” Kate pointed ahead. “Seems like he has the same idea though.”
Lex Luthor had just arrived and he had made a beeline for Lois, Vicki and Clark.
Though he had wanted to watch them both up close, he had wanted them separate, or at least in an environment he had some control over.
Stumped on how to proceed, Bruce watched as Lex led Clark out of the party and across the hall, far in the direction of his father’s office.
“Wonder what’s that about,” Kate hummed. “You wouldn’t happen to know, would you?”
Irritated and tense with how tied up he felt, he grumbled, “I have a hunch.”
“Are you going to share, or are you going leave me hanging?”
“Something to do with their own interview, which happened before mine,” was all he could spare.
A brief pause passed, which she broke with a frustrated “Okay, something very odd is happening and I need you tell me what it is before I start drawing conclusions you don’t like.”
“Believe it or not, I feel the same right now,” he said, staring in the direction of the office.
“You want to make a game out of guessing what Lex wants or do you think your new bestie is going to feel chatty when they’re finished?” she asked, sounding she was hoping for the latter.
“I’ll wait and see,” he said miserably, tearing his eyes away from the office and back in the direction Lois was in.
Despite still chatting with Vicki, Lois kept her eyes in the direction of Thomas Wayne’s office, seeming preoccupied by its occupants. If Clark had confided in her about what had happened the last time he’d been alone with Lex, then Bruce didn’t doubt she was concerned. And if he’d told her about before, he’d tell her about now.
He had a few tracking devices on him, he’d been meaning to place one on Clark’s phone. He could quickly slip away, get a minuscule mic and apply it to either him or Lois for later, so he could get further information on what the hell Lex was up to.
Seemingly having given up on this topic for now, Kate made a squelching noise with her lips and rerouted the conversation. “So, when am I meeting him?”
He jerked his head in her direction, frowning. “Clark?”
She made that humored snorting sound again, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Jesus, that guy is taking up all the space in your head right now, huh?”
“It’s not—”
“I meant the kid, by the way,” she said. “We’d all like to meet him.”
“Oh, that…that would be nice,” he mumbled, deflating a little. “I have been trying to figure out how to start making a life for him, and having family around would help with that.”
Her expression softened. “Even if it’s us?”
“Who else would it be? You’re all I’ve got.”
Kate sighed sadly. “Yeah, you’re all I’ve got too at this rate.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just, the usual bullshit with my parents, and Beth and her fiancé,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Mom thought me leaving the army would now mean I had time to become a proper socialite and honor her in public, and Dad, on the other hand, is feeling dishonored that I left.”
“Did he expect you to stay there forever?”
“Well, yeah, he had hopes I’d be a general or some shit.” She raised her hands, warding off the topic. “We can meet up and vent another time, but after you introduce me to my nephew.”
Normally any focus on Dick would raise his suspicions, but it felt like she was making an effort to reconnect, and in turn give him what he needed to build a somewhat-normal existence for his ward. It made his mouth quirk up slightly, a tired smile.
“He’s not your nephew.”
“Then what the hell is he?”
Bruce considered it, trying to remember how Alfred had once explained his own family tree to him. “Think he’s also your cousin.”
“That doesn’t sound right, but okay.” Kate jerked her thumb over her shoulder, right at Lois and Vicki. “So, you coming to wingman me or what?”
Playing up his reluctance, he followed her to the center of the room, hoping this helped him appear as a decent host, and introduced her to both of the reporters.
“Here is the man of the hour,” Vicki greeted him with her arms up, like she expected a hug or a kiss. “About time you graced us with your presence.”
“Sorry for the delay, I was entertaining other guests,” he lied smoothly. “What did we interrupt?”
He could have slipped into their conversation in a smoother manner than that, but he didn’t know how.
Vicki dropped her arms, but her smile struggled to stay up. “We were just discussing how we both lost out on the front pages of the decade to the same guy, and how unfair it is that sloppy hick keeps tripping into these opportunities.”
Lois discreetly rolled her eyes at Vicki’s back as she sipped her champagne. “‘Sloppy’ is the last thing I’d use to describe someone who beat me to a story.”
“You know what I mean,” Vicki whined. “He’s been in the business for two minutes and he gets interviews with two billionaires and a superhero? What’s up with that?”
Lois aimed her light, bright eyes his way. “Yeah, what’s up with that, Mr. Wayne? I asked him and he acts like it was no big deal.”
Bruce may not be like most men in his demographic, or most men in general, but he still had eyes, and he could see just how stunning Lois Lane was up close. She had clear, luminous skin, soft yet striking features, lush hair that had to have been dyed a shade that dark, and big eyes he couldn’t tell were blue or grey or a very light green. Being effortlessly beautiful had to offer a benefit in this kind of job, where you had to charm people, get them to loosen up and even do risky favors for you to get your vital information, if not pull opportunities out of thin air for your sake.
At least, that seemed to be what Vicki depended on. Lois seemed far more ‘present’, and alert, as those light eyes watched him with curious calculation, like she were trying to figure something out. It wouldn’t be the first time someone watched him this way, he was visibly tired and awkward and inexperienced in socializing, but he had a feeling that wasn’t why she seemed so confused by him.
“It maybe wasn’t a big deal to him,” he finally replied. “I don’t know about the rest, but he just made a good impression when we first met, and that made me agree when he asked for an interview.”
“So, he just shot his shot and you were in a good enough mood to waste your breath on a foreign paper?” Vicki tried to play off her displeasure off as a joke, but her pinched tone and tight smile broadcasted that she was bothered.
“Foreign? We’re right next door,” Lois laughed.
“Even worse, he didn’t even have to look far!” Vicki gestured with her glass, nearly sloshing its contents out on Kate. “Seriously, what did that guy do to impress you so much? I’m just dying to know.”
“He had the balls to chase down Superman for a quote?” Kate offered, making Vicki jump when she noticed her presence. “That’s what I’m assuming anyway.”
After glancing at Kate like she was something she’d found stuck to her shoe, Vicki returned to Bruce. “Was that it? You and Luthor found him worthy because the alien did?”
“Oh, I feel like Luthor saw his appeal in a more…personal way,” Lois said into her glass, not discreet but not forthcoming either.
Bruce felt quite uncomfortable at her hint though, and it really made him want to go to his father’s office and stick his ear to the door, if not break it down and see what was going on.
There were cameras in there, as there were everywhere but the bedrooms and bathrooms. He could go and see what they’d discussed for himself once everyone went home.
“What does that mean?” Vicki asked her. “Are either of you going to let me in on this guy’s deal?”
“Maybe you’re better off asking Lex next,” Kate suggested. “Look, now’s your chance!”
Vicki snapped in the direction Kate had pointed in with the immediate devoted attention of a dog that had heard the doorbell, and she jetted off in Lex’s direction, blocking his path as he exited the office. Clark emerged after him, ducking past them both to rush back to Lois, flushed and a little animated. “You won’t believe—”
Clark stopped when he noticed Bruce and Kate, eyes going blank, like he had forgotten what he had come to share. “I—hi.”
When Bruce took him in, he felt equally stumped. “Hi.”
There was no obvious difference from how he’d looked earlier, but there was a noticeable change between when he’d followed Lex into the office and now. Though Clark’s hair wasn’t exactly neat to begin with, it felt messier now, and his shirt was crumpled, especially towards the bottom, like he had just roughly shoved it back inside his trousers.
Bruce scanned the rest of him before settling on his face, which was flushed, the pink tinge spanning his mid-face and his coloring his lips, which seemed bigger and shinier than he remembered.
A sick feeling stabbed at his lower gut.
“Hi,” Kate said loudly, reaching between them. “You must be the guy every reporter in the country wants to strangle.”
As if he had somehow forgotten they had company, Clark snapped out of their staring contest with a soft gasp and hurriedly shook Kate’s hand. “Yes, hi, that’s me, I guess.”
“I’m starting to feel left out, so, when do I get my turn with you?” she teased.
Clark laughed bashfully. “My dance-card’s full at the moment, but Lois could help you out there.”
Lois, to her credit, was watching Clark with what Bruce felt was his own expression of incredulous shock. He had no doubt that they had both reached the same conclusion about Clark and Lex’s discussion.
“Right,” she said slowly, before turning her attention to Kate with a playful smile. “So, what makes you so interesting?”
“Oh, where do I start?” Kate leaned into her space, eyeing her. “You got all night?”
“To listen to you talk?”
Kate smirked at her. “Among other things.”
Lois seemed to be considering the semi-serious offer, and after another concerned glance Clark’s way, she linked her arm with Kate’s. “Okay, start talking.”
They strolled away to the refreshments table, leaving Clark and Bruce standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.
He couldn’t handle the curious silence anymore. “What was that about?”
Clark hummed at him, confused.
“Lex. What did he want now?”
“Oh, that,” Clark said nervously, avoiding eye contact, almost like he was guilty of something. “He, uh, wanted to talk about how our interview had ended. Wanted to clear things up. Or air things out.”
“And?”
“I told him he had nothing to worry about. I wasn’t going to out him or slander him or say he was a creep or anything,” Clark said, a little rushed. “He also told me that I had nothing to worry about in terms of, like, blacklisting or him abusing his power, or anything.”
“He ask you to sign an NDA?”
“Uh, no.” Clark’s blush deepened, reaching the apples of his cheeks. “He asked me out.”
“Asked you out,” Bruce repeated dully. “Isn’t that a little unprofessional?”
“Yeah, it’s why I said we had to wait until his interview was published, because he wanted to start now.”
“Right now?”
“Mhm,” Clark hummed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, so, I said next week at the earliest, just for the ethics and optics of it all.”
“Optics,” Bruce echoed again, his head feeling oddly empty.
“Of me going out with him and then having an interview with him,” Clark explained. “It just makes me look like I got an unfair advantage.”
“Or like you exchanged favors,” he said bitterly.
Taken aback, Clark met his eyes. “Yeah, that too.”
Bruce didn’t know how to proceed here. He wanted to tell Clark to not entertain Lex further, to not let himself be alone with him, or tell him anything he might know about anything. He wanted to warn him off, but he had no way of doing that without coming off as suspicious or unhinged or, worse, jealous.
Whatever Lex’s goal here was exactly, he now had to sit back and observe it through Clark.
There was no time to get the mic to bug Clark, but he could start tracking him.
The best he could come up with on the spot was an overly formal offer. “On that note, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’d be open to a more personal outing now that our business is done?”
Clark blinked at him, possibly processing how odd that sentence was. “You want to hang out?”
“Yes,” he said, forcing his nerves and frustration down to appear calm. “Would you like to do something next weekend?”
“I—yeah, sure!” Clark brightened, the avoidance gone in favor of meeting his eyes. “What did you have in mind?”
“I was hoping you’d pick something, like you’d picked that place we had dinner,” he said. “We don’t have to pick a time and place now if you don’t have any ideas.”
“Oh, good, let’s check our schedules and figure out what to do later. Do I call your assistant for that?”
It was either par for the course for people like Bruce to deal with their personal lives through third parties, or Clark still didn’t believe this was an attempt to establish something interpersonal. Bruce had to wonder if that was what Lex had done, just given him an assistant’s number.
He shook his head and reached into his pocket for the tracker. “Give me your phone.”
Clark handed it over unquestioningly, and Bruce pressed the tracker, so small and unnoticeable, against the phone’s back as he typed his personal number into the contacts and called himself.
Numbers exchanged, he handed Clark his phone back with what he’d hoped was an unassuming smile. “There, now there’s nothing in our way.”
“Gotta say, I did not expect to come out of tonight with two billionaires wanting to hang out with me,” Clark said lightheartedly, pocketing his phone. “Should I pinch myself? Or is this more common than I think?”
It certainly wasn’t common, and that was why this scenario had Bruce on edge. He now had someone rivaling him for vital world-changing intel on what amounted to a flying nuke, and unlike him, Lex could do some damage with whatever he learned. He needed to get ahead of that somehow.
He also didn’t want any innocents to get hurt in the process, and chiefly among them Clark.
“You’re not dreaming, but this doesn’t happen often, no.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why me?”
Bruce felt like Clark knew what now made him special to most, but his goodnatured hopefulness must have had him seeking out other, more optimistic answers detached from his association with Superman.
“Maybe I just see something in you everyone else is too dim to notice,” Bruce suggested.
Clark’s eyes flew up to meet his with a focus that hadn’t been there all night, as if he had just realized something. Unblinking for a noticeable amount of time, his gaze bore into Bruce’s own, like he was searching for an unspoken answer within them.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Clark asked with measured calm, curious, determined, half-shifting into his professional mode as an investigative reporter. It made Bruce’s face burn.
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “But I’ll tell you when I do.”
Satisfied with that answer, Clark disengaged his watchful stare and straightened back. “Okay.”
That odd little exchange more or less confirmed that Clark did know something. Be it about the alien or the metahuman or Lex or even Bruce himself, he knew something, and Bruce had to find out what it was.
The night ended when half the guests had left and Bruce had become too burned out to keep lingering among so many strangers. He had had his fill of many people in close proximity for at least the rest of the summer, and now needed to recharge.
When everyone had left, and Alfred had gone to bed, Bruce settled in his quarters' desk with his laptop and opened the feed of the security camera in his father’s office to finally witness what had gone on within it.
It had gone differently than he’d imagined, but that didn’t make watching it any less uncomfortable.
Lex hadn’t come to threaten Clark into staying quiet, or to hold their interview over his head for information or leverage or anything. He seemed to be on the verge of panicking about Clark telling people about their moment in his limo. Only when he’d been assured that Clark wasn’t some shameless tabloid reporte who’d out him for a comeup, did he relax and change his strategy.
This had to be a continuation of whatever had gone wrong the first time, and though he knew that Clark had accepted the advancement this time, seeing it play out still…hit different.
From his vantage point, Bruce could watch them both from the side, and zoom in enough to watch their expressions, even when they were a meter apart.
Lex shut the office door and leaned against it “Look, we’re both adults here, and while I appreciate that you’ve kept what happened mostly to yourself, I still think we should discuss it.”
“Okay,” Clarks aid, tone neutral, breathing even. “Let’s discuss it.”
A tense silence stretched between them with neither of them breaking it for a good three minutes judging by Bruce’s feed.
Finally, Lex pushed off the door and carefully approached Clark, as if he were trying to not come off as intimidating. “Clark. May I call you ‘Clark’?”
“I guess.”
He rubbed at his forehead, swallowing audibly. “Look, I’m sorry that I ruined a nice night by getting way ahead of myself. It was never my intention for you to feel uncomfortable or harassed in any way, I had just misread the situation. Badly.”
This was an oddly nice way to deal with this issue. Bruce wondered if this was a new approach used by men in this position now, to try to play on the good intentions and expectations of the people who could expose them.
“What I’m trying to say is, I never do stuff like this. I don’t need to force people to do anything to get what I want, it’s always willing and compensated,” Lex continued, toneless, rehearsed.
Clark let out a huff.
Lex frowned at him. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just, that’s the usual defense powerful men have when they’re accused of abusing their power, that they don’t ‘need’ to force anyone into anything,” he explained, placing his hands in his trouser pockets. “I’m not saying you do that, but just maybe try not to phrase it like that?”
Dumbstruck, Lex gaped for a good few seconds before he, amazed, baffled, maybe even amused, asked, “Are you editing my apology right now?”
Clark shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just saying, maybe you should have had your publicist look it over first.”
“This isn’t rehearsed,” he snapped, irritated. “I’m trying to explain myself and why you should not feel threatened by me. I may not be a joy to work for but I’m not one of those perverts who get off on coercing their secretaries! I’ve fired men for doing less!
Bruce would have to look into that claim, because if it were true, then perhaps his unwitting rival wasn’t as bad as he’d expected.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?” Lex asked a bit too intensely. "You believe me?”
“Does it matter if I do?” Clark asked plainly. “Is anyone going to believe me if I tell them what happened?”
A fair amount would, Bruce could make sure of it. If the effort was necessary at least.
“Some won’t, but just enough will to make a difference.”
“Ah, so that’s what this is about.” Clark pinched his lips in discomfort. “You’re worried I’m going to out you.”
“…Are you?” Lex asked, uncharacteristically nervous.
Clark shot him an offended look. “No, of course not. I told you I’m a reporter, not some loser who runs a gossip blog. What you do in private is no one’s business, just as long as no one gets hurt.”
Lex didn’t quite seem relieved to hear that. “Clark, I think you realize that it’s not just the fact that you’re a man that I’m worried about. I’ve spent our time apart agonizing over your reaction to my advances and what that would mean if you told the world how it was from your perspective.”
Stepping closer, Clark urged, “And pray tell, what is my perspective?”
He sighed, rubbing at his reddening face. “You really making me do this?”
“I’m not making you do anything, Mr. Luthor.”
“For fuck’s sake, enough with the professional distance, I’ve had my tongue in your mouth!” he complained, already wound up.
That earned him a sudden, surprised laugh out of Clark. “All right, Lex, what exactly do you think I felt?”
Exhaling loudly through his nostrils, Lex paced slightly as he recounted, “That you were this naive heartland transplant lured into being alone with a very powerful member of the coastal elite, all on the promise of an interview. Then I got you in my car under false pretenses and essentially molested you, where the implication being that I could ruin your career if you denied me.”
“And I’m guessing you felt that I was going to sell that story to the Planet and make all the rich people who want to seem good and progressive drag you through the mud to look better in comparison and publicly avoid you for a couple of years?”
Lex stopped still, hands half up, as if he weren’t sure what to do with them. “Pretty much.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that.”
Lex frowned, puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because that’s not what happened, at least not from my perspective.”
Lex made a few false starts, practically tripping over his own tongue until let out a frustrated yell. “Then what was all that about? What happened then?”
“I, uh, panicked?” Clark said sheepishly. “For many reasons, not just one.”
“Name them,” he ordered, setting his hands on his hips. “I’ve explained myself, now it’s your turn.”
“Fine. I—to start? I wasn’t expecting you to actually do anything about…” he removed his hands from his pockets to gesture between them. “I thought that you’d, at most, tease me about it.”
“Tease you about what?”
Clark seemed dumbfounded. “My thing for you.”
So, Clark did find Lex attractive? Why? What would someone like him enjoy about someone so inherently different from him? Was he starstruck?
“Your thing for me? You have a thing for me?” Lex mocked. “You write for a living and that’s the best you can come up with?”
“Well, if you’re going to be mean about it—”
He raised a hand, saving him the irritation. “Continue.”
“As I was saying, I just thought that that vibe I felt between us was one-sided and that you’d, at most, find it funny. I didn’t think you’d actually make a move, and then when you did, all I could think about was how unethical this was because I wanted to publish our interview.” Clark scuffed the floor with his foot. “Don’t forget that you were drunk, so the lines were pretty blurred. It was anyone’s guess if you even knew who you were kissing at that point, and I just felt bad for being into it.”
“It sure didn’t seem like you were into it when you threw yourself onto the street to get away from me,” he grumbled bitterly.
It was almost as if Lex had felt genuinely hurt by Clark’s rejection. His behavior was too heated and unmeasured to be a performance, though that didn’t mean he still wasn’t here with a manipulative goal.
“Lex, come on, I just gave you three good reasons for why I was on edge,” he said tiredly. “Also, that might have been normal for you, but it certainly wasn’t for me.”
“You’re not telling me that you’re saving yourself for marriage, are you?”
Clark snorted. “Nah, that ship sailed ages ago. I just never had another guy grab my dick, is all.”
The frank way he'd expressed that fact had Bruce jerking in his seat. So, Clark had been receptive to Lex's overzealous advances and shown hints of attraction towards Bruce, but he'd never actually pursued another man?
There was no reason for this to be important information, but it sure felt impactful to him right now.
Lex clucked his tongue, chiding himself. “Right, I sometimes forget not everyone has had my experiences.”
“You’re that out of touch?”
Lex rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I’m talking about being in an all-boys school, where you have to make do with what’s available.”
Clark briefly met his eyes. “And is that what it was? Just me being available?”
It should have ended here. Lex should have just taken the offer to mark this all as a misunderstanding and leave with the good news that he was not about to brave a PR shitstorm and at most send a goodwill gift to Clark’s office to ensure they had ended this mess on good terms. A box of chocolates or a cologne that would be mid-tier to him, but a big deal to someone on a reporter’s salary. A quiet offer that could be passed as a thank-you for a job-well-done on their interview, and then none of this would need to be brought up again.
But he didn’t do any of that, he’d gone further than he’d needed to.
Licking his lips, he approached Clark, sounding out of breath. “Come home with me.”
Clark was startled, voice shrill as he said, “What? No!”
“Why not? You said you had a thing for me, didn’t you?”
“Doesn’t mean I ever planned to act on it.”
“Well, I do.”
“Because I’m available?” Clark mocked.
With a frustrated groan, Lex reached out and hauled him close by his belt. “No, you idiot, it’s because I want you. I’ve wanted you since I saw you on that balcony.”
The balcony Bruce had met Clark in, the one where they had briefly forgotten that Lex had even been there.
Clark closed his eyes as he shuddered. “Why am I having a hard time believing you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Lex spoke against Clark’s jaw, practically kissing it. “You think I make a fool of myself regularly and for no reason?”
Something drastic had shifted in the tone of the scene, and Bruce now felt himself grow uneasy, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. He had gone over hours of far more distressing footage than two men having a personal discussion, and rarely did they affect him anymore.
“Maybe you do and you just have great PR,” Clark joked.
“There’s a revelation for your exposé,” he teased, moving his hands from the belt and up Clark’s chest, nosing his throat as Clark turned his head back to groan at the ceiling. “You could get all the sordid details if you come home with me now.”
“That’s the problem.” He caught Lex’s hands just as they reached his chest, now facing him. “If we do this then the interview is null and void.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t have a personal relationship with the subject beforehand, it’s unethical and biased and just bad journalism.”
“And who would know if we fucked before or after it gets published? Better yet, who would care?”
“I would!” Clark complained. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I felt like I had an unfair advantage over everyone else who wanted this.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, what are you? A Boy Scout?”
Clark stared at him incredulously before yelling “YES!”
“Of course you were,” Lex sighed, sounding strangely endeared. “Tell you what, how’s about we look over what you wrote, send it to be published then we can finish what we started.”
Clark seemed to consider it, but he still objected anyway. “I appreciate the loophole, but you have to understand that I don’t do this and I don’t know if I can.”
Lex groaned internally, pulling his hands free from Clark’s grasp. “Can’t what? Fuck another man?”
His mouth quirked in a humorless half-smile. “Have a one-night stand.”
“You should, it makes everything easier.”
Clark shook his head. “Not for me. I know what I’m like and that this it could really hurt me. I don’t want that, do you?”
Bruce knew that Lex was holding back his actual response here, because he clearly did just want to finish what he’d started in that limo, and do it now. He couldn’t tell if this was to prove a point, soothe his bruised ego from the prior rejection, or if Clark was, in fact, simply the available option before him in a moment where he just wanted to fuck someone, anyone. If the goal here was misdirection or to gain favor with his target, he surely wouldn’t be this tactless about his approach, would he? He risked scaring him off again!
So, what the hell was he playing at right now?
Lex exhaled his frustration, rubbing his head the way people would run their hands through their hair. “What exactly do you want me to do here, get down on one knee?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but maybe a date or something? Make me feel like I’m not jumping off the deep end.”
“I thought reporters always took risks.”
He met Lex’s eyes, asking, “Are you worth that kind of risk?”
There was something compelling about the way Clark had been handling this entire conversation, the way he hadn’t been intimidated by it, the unyielding demeanor that probably contributed to Lex losing his cool and going off whatever script he’d arrived with. It spoke of hidden layers, ones that expanded what Bruce had glimpsed during their handful of hours together. It made him wish he could speak to him frankly, about anything, where no pretense or politeness or social expectations held them back.
Perhaps he needed to approach him the way Lex had, make himself seem stupidly vulnerable to encourage some kind of reciprocation?
“You’re really twisting my arm here, Kent, but I give in,” he said, stepping back with his hands raised in surrender. “The night’s still young, we can go on that date now if you want.”
Clark didn’t respond with the enthusiasm either of his spectators had expected. “I can’t just leave, not when I was personally invited.”
“Lane can get the story for your boss while you get the trade-off of my exclusive,” he argued.
“No, I mean, Bruce asked me to come just to be here.”
It was as if his name had stoked Lex’s rage. “You on a first name basis now?”
Clark rolled his shoulders dismissively. “He insisted during our interview.”
“Right, he beat me to you on that.” Lex sneered, interestingly affected, jealous even. “Makes me wonder what else he got to first.”
He didn’t know why the implication took him aback to he extent his mouth fell open. Maybe it was the hint at how others perceived him now that he was in public, maybe it had something to do with Kate’s teasing, or his need to have assured Clark that he was nothing like Lex. Either way, the fact that Lex Luthor had gotten this stupidly worked up by the suspicion that Bruce had succeeded where he had failed was fascinating, another note to add to his file.
Still, it had bothered Clark, who had broken his peaceful, easygoing demeanor to snap “What is your problem, Luthor?”
It should have ended here. This attempt shouldn’t have been salvageable. Lex had shown the nasty side of him that he'd kept on a tight leash and had done it with such reactive petulance that it should have shattered any goodwill Clark had left for him.
And yet…
“I honestly don’t know,” Lex said breathlessly, a little unsteady, as if he had shocked himself with his outburst. “I haven’t been myself since we met and it’s kind of driving me mad.”
Clark eyed him weirdly. “Any idea why?”
He covered his eyes, arm trembling. “I think I am, in the concise terms of my friend Oliver Queen, stupid-horny.”
What the fuck kind of strategy was this?
“As in you’re pent up or you’re so turned on it’s making you reckless?”
A somewhat hysterical laugh that escaped Lex. “Both.”
“Wow,” he breathed out, stunned. “I thought that stopped once you left your teens.”
“I thought so too, and yet, here I am, desperate for some guy I just met like I'm a fucking Disney princess.”
“No offense, but are you off any medications?”
That question should have struck Lex as offensive and touched on a nerve that courted another overreaction, but he just shrugged and stuck his fingertips in his mouth. “Not unless my sertraline has stopped working, but I can see why you’d think that.”
Bruce made a note to access Lex’s medical records and make a comparison report on his behavior and whatever diagnoses he found there, but something needed to explain why he was verging on being erratic. He had even started biting his nails.
Clark caught his wrist, pulling his hand away from his teeth. “Seriously though, are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said, uncharacteristically soft and quiet. “Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it was because we met on the anniversary of her death, and maybe I’m just not used to being around someone as nice as you, but I can’t tell you why I’m being so impulsive.”
Bruce assumed ‘her’ was Lex’s mother, who he had named a wing of the Metropolis Museum after. Still, that entire response felt follow, like it was the most coherent thought Lex had put into what he’d said so far, a ploy for sympathy.
Somehow, he got the desired response as Clark touched Lex’s arm, thumbing the purple material of his shirt in soothing circles. “It’s all right. Happens to the best of us.”
“Does that mean you’re willing to let it slide and give me another chance?”
“I still don’t understand why you’d want that, but, sure.”
Instead of giving him a reason, Lex flashed him a relieved grin and closed the gap between them with a kiss.
Bile sloshed up Bruce’s throat, twisting his mouth with distaste.
He should have ended his watch here. He already knew how this had turned out. But for some reason, he decided to see it to its conclusion, just in case Lex made another mindless fumble and dropped a hint or a clue he could build off of later.
They briefly broke apart and looked at each other, and while Lex seemed to be considering something he’d noticed, Clark had just visibly relaxed enough to grin at him.
Lex surged back in, deepening the kiss and speeding up the pace, the mics in the room picking up all the noises that rose from their meeting mouths, sparking a rush of goosebumps up Bruce’s arms, raising all his hair.
He shouldn’t be watching this.
It wasn’t just that this had kept going longer than he’d expected, but that it had escalated further than he’d anticipated, because one minute Clark had cupped the back of Lex’s head to adjust the angle of their kiss and the next Lex was reaching for his belt.
Clark briefly pulled back, already flushed. “What are you doing?”
“Since you won’t come home with me, I’m starting with a compromise.” Lex knelt before him, tugging down everything down and giving Bruce a clear profile of Clark’s growing erection. “You want to hold on to the desk for me?”
His focus split between being analytical of what he was witnessing and being absorbed by the shameless display. It wasn’t as if this was the first time he’d had to go through lewd acts captured on any of his feeds, especially those from cameras he had slipped into the corners of clubs, bars and various business fronts of criminals or even the odd higher-up’s office in Wayne Enterprises. He had had to fast forward through expected instances of infidelity, the sickening moments of coercion and displays of power imbalance, and even the dubious encounters of exchanged favors. He’d even had to listen through negligible hookups between pairs he was observing, just for the goal of snipping a crucial soundbite.
None of them had felt like what he was now observing. He had already gotten enough scraps to start building his case, and he knew where this was going, he didn’t need to keep it playing.
But he did.
Leaning his weight against the desk, Clark panted down at him, conflicted. “But we said not before the article comes out.”
“Which probably won’t be before next week considering Bruce got his done first.” He winked up at him as he slowly stroked Clark’s cock. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Bruce really shouldn’t be watching this.
Clark didn’t fight it for long, throwing his head back to groan. “Lex, this isn’t right.”
“Come on, farm boy, live a little,” Lex teased, pulling back the foreskin to tease at the head with his tongue. “I’m sure no one at your high school considered this real sex.”
“Yeah, but—” he was cut off by a moan as Lex took half his erection into his mouth and started sucking.
The room, the feed, the headphones pressed to his ears were flooded with filthy, indulgent noise, numbing the edges of his brain, leaving him to stare with a mindless fixation at the screen and feel his body betray his years of strict self-control.
He should be disgusted by this. He should feel nothing but offense and fury by the shamelessness of Lex doing this in a place where anyone could walk in, of him desecrating the space where Bruce’s father had done his work, and making this move, this impulsive display of self-interest during the first party Bruce himself had thrown. Whether this had been based in spite against Bruce himself, or was purely a desperate urge to throw Clark off finding him suspicious, it didn’t matter what the motivation was, because—
He’d lost his train of thought when a louder moan broke his focus, and he just passively watched as Lex upped his pace, the wet sounds of him sucking and pleasuring himself as he moaned around Clark replacing all coherent thought.
Stifling heat spread under his skin, making it feel oddly tight around his muscles, and his heart beat at the volume that should be reserved for panic and dread, but he felt nothing close to neither. He couldn’t quite name what he was feeling, but it all rode on his heightened blood flow, where it seemed split between rushing up to flush his face and crashing down to pool between his thighs.
He shouldn’t be watching this. He shouldn’t be watching this. He shouldn’t be watching—
Clark arched back against the desk, head flung back as he groaned at the ceiling and legs shaking as he finished in Lex’s mouth. Lex followed him not long after, humming as he swallowed and intensely worked himself into his own climax.
It took a few minutes for them to pull themselves together. Lex had used a pocket square to wipe his mouth and clean his come off the floor, and was then helped up by Clark. He wavered, lightheaded from his release, stiff from being on his knees or both, and was steadied by Clark, and they stood like that, watching each other as they caught their breath.
Bruce couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore. It was coherent, it was picked up by the mics, but the blood was still rushing in his head, sounding like the waves of the ocean crashing onto the shore.
They tidied themselves up and left the room one after the other, and he had attended what had occurred after.
Slamming the laptop shut, all he could do was stare ahead at the antique silver-backed mirror and watch his reflection in the dim, warm ambiance of his bedroom.
His face was bright pink, his breathing was so shallow and fast he was practically panting, and his heartbeat had migrated to his stomach, its echoes pounding in his crotch.
He had already been frustrated in general from everything he’d been juggling this week, and he also hadn’t masturbated in days, so, it was expected to react this way.
But he never had before. Examining this kind of footage had never been arresting or even titillating, but always the exact opposite. It had never felt this voyeuristic, this self-indulgent, this frustrating.
There was no time to question or examine this. There was no reason to, really.
He pushed up and headed straight into the ensuite bathroom, where he stood under the freezing downpour of his shower until he’d started shaking and snapped out of whatever the hell this was.
Drying and with his head back on straight, Bruce headed down to the cave and began his night shift, which afforded him a few hours’ worth of distraction.
By the time he’d returned and crashed at dawn, he’d made up his mind. If Lex had chosen being unpredictable and sexual as his way into Clark Kent’s trust, all in some hope that he’d slip something out during pillow-talk or even during their date, then Bruce’s mode would be something less volatile and more dependable: friendship.
He’d ingratiate himself to Clark, become a part of his personal life to the extent that he’d be someone he’d confide in about anything, up to including Lex himself, any stories he was pursuing worth the Bat’s attention, and, of course, Superman.
If he accumulated a few personal milestones and social experiences in the meantime, it would be a bonus.
He could do this, he could use him as a lead and be his friend, and keep both those parts as separate as he was now keeping Bruce Wayne and the Batman.
But it was all easier said than done.
Notes:
So, how do we think he's going to handle the Clex of it all?
Chapter 3
Notes:
So, it is looking like every chapter in this fic will be this long 😅 Better make yourself something to drink and settle in for a nice binge because Bruce is not making it easy
Something something here's the fic's Writing Playlist!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Bruce couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Not in the typical way he’d be preoccupied by a case or hung up on a mystery. Those he was used to, those were particular feelings he could easily categorize and file away. It didn’t even nag at him the way a nuisance would, like when his electronics malfunctioned or when his bike or car got fucked up.
What bothered him the most about this particular fixation was that he couldn’t clearly identify it. The closest comparison was when he had a pain he couldn’t massage or numb, like the itches he’d get under his skin, something hard to manage and even harder to reach.
It didn’t help that parts of what he’d witnessed started assailing him at random moments. He couldn’t quite call them intrusive thoughts, because he had suffered those—still did—but had learned to manage them, and they were always violent or repulsive. And while Lex Luthor’s chosen methods of manipulation were repulsive and had angered him, he couldn’t pin his reaction on the act itself.
He hadn’t let himself overthink his reaction to it. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What mattered was the inevitable fallout.
“This came for you.” Alfred leaned over Dick to hand him the tablet, showing him an e-invite to his Wayne Enterprises email.
Bruce couldn’t help the displeased face he pulled mid-chew.
“What is it?” Dick asked, annoyingly alert this early in the morning. “Is it a new gadget?”
“It’s an invite to the LuthorCorp Expo next week,” he mumbled, tapping out a brief reply, accepting the invite. “Lex wants us to come see the latest tech his company is rolling out.”
“You don’t want to go?”
“Not particularly, but I have to start showing up to these things for appearances.” He returned to his breakfast, languidly chewing on his buttered toast. “In this case, I need to see what Lex’s got with my own eyes, it might help me figure out what his plan is.”
Alfred made a soft noise as he poured himself another serving from the silver tea kettle. “Whatever he might be up to might have nothing to do with his company. If he is doing anything at all.”
“Not officially,” Bruce argued. “A lot of the strange characters showing up in Metropolis were contracted to cause trouble through middlemen and wired payments through foreign bank accounts, and a fair bit of the tech that has been used in fights or attacks against the Superman seem oddly advanced to have been made in someone’s garage.”
Dick pushed his plate aside, most of it empty. He’s been better about finishing his meals, even the nutritionist-approved foods he’d been puzzled by at first. “You think he’s behind Superman’s rogues?”
“Not all of them, but a fair amount,” Bruce said, popping the last bit of toast in his mouth. “The swarm of robots that attacked him this month, those had to be from LuthorCorp. The way they just showed up and got their pieces quickly collected after he dealt with them was too efficient, like a team had been waiting to pick them back up.”
“But why?” Dick asked. “What did Superman do to him?”
“That’s what I need to figure out.”
“He could simply be testing his tech out on the alien,” Alfred suggested. “Seems like it would save time and money on trials.”
“None of the tech he’s testing is exactly harmless,” Bruce argued.
Alfred shrugged and raised his teacup to sip. “Well, LuthorCorp does have military contracts with the US government, doesn’t it?”
That was a reasonable line of thought. He needed to follow it to its logical conclusion. “You think the government is telling him to do this? That they want to find out if this thing has any weaknesses?”
Dick let out an indignant squawk. “The army wants to hurt Superman?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Alfred said. “He is, objectively, a national security risk, and figuring out how to take him down could help in the event more of him show up intending to cause trouble for humanity.”
“But—but Superman is a hero!” Dick complained, eyes wide with worry. “He’d never do anything to make them want to take him down!”
“We don’t know that,” Bruce told him, resting back in his seat, coffee mug between both his hands, tapping his fingers on its sides. “We don’t know anything about him.”
“Yes, we do! We know what your friend wrote in his newspaper!”
“Which could all be lies,” Alfred pointed out. “He could not even be an alien at all, but some metahuman having a laugh at our expense.”
Attempting to poke holes in the image of his favorite person was not what Dick was ready to deal with first thing in the morning. If anything, the suggestion that Superman could have lied about anything he’d told Clark seemed to hurt the boy’s feelings.
He didn’t want to descend into unchecked paranoia about the alien, but he did need to remain suspicious until he had gotten enough proof that this being, this entity, this thing was what he claimed to be.
But, that didn’t mean he had to dampen a child’s hopes. Superman was among the few things that made Dick smile, and for his sake—and the sake of the world—he hoped that nothing would prove them wrong.
“Or maybe not,” Bruce said, for some damage control. “Whether he is hiding something or not, we still need to know if Lex means him harm.”
“So, you’d help him if Luthor tried to hurt him?” Dick asked.
“I don’t know if I even can. I’m pretty limited with what I can do, which is why I’m not happy about metahumans moving to Gotham,” he grumbled.
“I believe Master Dick is asking if you will interfere as Bruce Wayne rather than as Batman,” Alfred pointed out.
Bruce frowned. “How on Earth would Bruce Wayne help Superman?”
“Do some corporate espionage and tell Superman you have a lead on who keeps antagonizing him?” Alfred suggested. “Maybe use your friend Mr. Kent?”
The mention of Clark in relation to Lex had opened the mental gates he’d been had keeping firmly shut and unleashed a few jarring flashes from the footage he’d regrettably watched. Brief, vivid, arresting snippets of what Clark looked like arching back against his father’s desk, trousers around his knees, eyes closed, mouth wide open as he panted and moaned—
Bruce’s chest seized for a fraction of a second, but just enough for him to choke on his coffee. He spluttered out his mouthful, coughing out the amount that had gone down the wrong pipe.
Doubled over, he coughed and heaved until the fit had faded.
He felt a soft touch on his arm and raised his head to face Dick, blinking away the tears of strain. “I’m fine. Drank too fast.”
Dick eyed him disbelievingly. “How do you drink something hot fast?”
“By getting distracted.” He straightened and wiped his mouth and chin with a napkin. “What were we saying?”
“That you gotta tell Superman to watch out for Luthor,” Dick said, leaning further towards him, elbows on the table, a habit Alfred had long given up on training Bruce out of. “Or get Clark to do it.”
“That might be easier said than done, it’s not like I can just text Clark and ask him to call up Superman. Even if he could, I can’t let him know anything just yet.”
Dick tilted his head, confused. “Why?”
There were at least three answers he could give as why he couldn’t rely on this idea, but he settled for “It’s complicated.”
Dick fluttered his lips like a horse. “That’s not an answer!”
“It’s all you’re getting until I figure out which step to take next.”
“Aren’t you going to see him this weekend? You could warn him then!”
“Dick, it’s not that simple,” he said. “I need to investigate them all a bit further first then figure out how to approach this whole situation.”
Dick groaned frustratedly. “How long is that gonna take?”
“Hopefully, I’ll have enough information after this week when I see him again.”
A faint flush filled his face at the reminder that he and Clark had set up a time to meet again this week, after his date with Lex.
That date was supposed to be today. He needed to monitor the whereabouts of the tracker he’d placed on Clark’s phone. He’d been passively keeping track of him since he’d left the party and his routine was fairly predictable, even if his schedule varied. He usually left his apartment by seven in the morning, took public transport and walked until that landed him at work by around eight and usually left between three and five. He had left the office a handful of times, usually to go pick up coffee or have lunch, or pursue something for his job at some other spot in Metropolis. Apart from that, he usually either went to one of the restaurants around the Daily Planet, stayed there to eat with a co-worker or just picked up takeout and headed home, where he’d stay the rest of the night.
Superman had shown up twice in that whole time to put out a factory fire on the outskirts of the city and then popped up across the country to catch a collapsing bridge. It made Bruce question where he lived exactly, how fast he could he fly, and how he knew when these emergencies had struck.
He could suggest them as further questions for Clark in the event he got to do a followup with Superman. If he already knew, then he’d try, once again, to get some answers in the form of simple curiosity.
Clark was due to have his date with Lex today. Bruce really wished he had bugged Lex’s penthouse or limousine so he could hear what they discussed, what method Lex now relied on to elicit his intel, and if Clark noticed this time that something was up.
“Until then, shouldn’t you two be getting dressed?” Alfred suggested. “Your meeting with the headmaster is an hour.”
Getting up, he finished his coffee and headed for his room while Dick scrambled up the stairs.
Today was their quote-unquote interview with the Gotham Academy for Boys, where Dick would—or should—be treated as a legacy, but they were no doubt going to put on the performance that he might not get accepted in to give the air of being fair or selective or whatever the hell these establishments did.
With June drawing to a close, it was too hot for him for him to wear a proper coat, but he needed to ‘make an impression’ according to Alfred and give the impression that he was a stable adult so he had to wear a three-piece suit, and went with a navy one with a sky-blue tie and combed his hair, slicking it with some gel while he practiced his easygoing smile.
Dick was ready and waiting for him in the manor’s entrance by the time he headed out, watching the blinking dot that signified Clark’s whereabouts on his tracking app. He was at the Jitters across from the Planet, a noon coffee break.
“That was fast,” he commented as they headed out the door. “Don’t remember you getting ready this quick when we had to go to court or therapy.”
“Those aren’t exciting,” he said plainly, skipping steps as he rushed down the manor’s front steps to their car.
“Don’t know if I’d call going to school exciting, but I suppose it’s less burdensome than the rest,” he mumbled, opened the car door.
Dick dove in and already had his phone out to play that godforsaken game throughout their trip. Bruce debated complaining about it and instilling a time limit or figuring out if there was a child-lock on these apps, but Dick ought to be excused for now because it was summer and his escapism was valid. He just didn’t want to raise a screen-addicted kid.
By the time they’d arrived at his old school, his alerts set for Superman had started popping up on his phone, documenting his latest appearance. Some criminal tentatively identified as Central City’s resident rogue, Captain Cold, had showed up to rob a bank in Metropolis for some reason.
Having no choice but to shut his phone and drop it in his suit pocket, he exited the car with Dick’s hand in his and found himself greeted by half the teaching staff and several of the headmaster’s underlings lined up horizontally before the school’s entrance.
“Mr. Wayne, welcome back!” greeted a nervous-looking young woman in the middle. “I’m Daphne Corr, the deputy headmistress, and let me say it is an honor to meet you.”
Bruce knew that was the moment to break out his practiced mindless grin and hold out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Corr.”
She goggled briefly at his hand then gently took it, staring up at him with wide eyes, lips apart, mouth threatening to fall open entirely.
“Something on my face?”
“What?” she said distractedly, before snapping out of it. “Oh, no. Sorry. I just—you’re so—I—”
She stopped, hand dropping from his as her lips rolled shut together, like she was holding back saying something.
Flustered, that’s what this reaction was. She found him attractive, like so many people online did. He ought to learn how to exploit that.
Daphne cleared her throat and looked down. “If you’ll please follow me.”
Bruce made an effort to glance at every other person lined up to greet him, nodding and smiling at each one, barely registering their faces as he led Dick up the steps and in after Daphne.
The place was barely different than when he’d left, the granite walls and floors clean, some parts of the hall held frames holding pictures of notable alumni and they passed the case that held every award and trophy earned by a school team on their way to the headmaster’s office.
Dick looked around with wide-eyed intrigue, peering at some of the open classrooms. There was no one here as exams had just ended, but from a cursory glance he had noticed that they had finally traded the blackboards for whiteboards.
Daphne led them to the office and then awkwardly turned and rushed away before he could thank her.
“What happened?” Dick asked, observant as ever. “Why is she running away?”
“She feels embarrassed.”
“From what?”
“Me, I guess,” he said. “I apparently have that effect on people.”
“What effect?”
“Flustering,” he said, then realized Dick probably didn’t know what meant. “I make people nervous.”
He snorted amusedly. “Yeah, you do.”
“Not like that, not as myself,” he said. “She’s not scared of me, just thrown off and made to feel awkward.”
“Why though?”
“Short answer? She thinks she embarrassed herself in front of someone she wants to impress.”
“Because you’re rich?”
“And because I’m young and her type, or just generally handsome,” he noted, knocking on the office door.
“Come in!”
They entered to find the headmaster already coming around his desk to greet them with handshakes. “Mr. Wayne, I must say it is so good to see you again.”
Bruce found Headmaster Pickens vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t guess who he’d been before he’d risen to running the school. He was a wiry, sunburnt man with close-cropped white hair and rectangular frameless glasses, he could have been anywhere from a rough late-forties to a good mid-sixties.
He and Dick mumbled polite thank-yous as they settled into the chairs set before Pickens’ desk.
“Now, I must say, I am pleasantly surprised you want to get your ward started here, considering how you left the academy,” Pickens began, as if he couldn’t help himself, leaning on his desk and towards them with an eager tilt. “So, what made you come back?”
Dick turned his wide eyes onto him, now just as curious as their company. The difference was, he had enough sense to wait until they left to ask.
Bruce sighed out his nostrils and offered Pickens a close-mouthed, breezy smirk of a smile. “I figured everyone that bothered me would have left or died by now, which leaves what I enjoyed about this place for my boy to experience for himself.”
Pickens took too long to laugh at his attempt at an airhead’s humor. “Is that all?”
“That and I don’t know anything else here,” he said, which was half-true. He and Alfred had researched other schools within Gotham, but had ultimately decided that a billionaire’s ward would fare better in a closed, controlled environment where he’d be among boys who wouldn’t goggle too hard at his new status or be exceptionally weird about it. Some were due to be little shits about Dick’s background and Bruce’s reception online, but he felt like a few twisted arms would help him establish dominance quick.
“You didn’t want him to start at where you ended up graduating?” Pickens asked.
“I just brought the boy home and you want me to ship him off to a boarding school already?”
The joke certainly didn’t land this time, and it might have been because, deep down, he was annoyed by the thoughtless suggestion and it must have showed in his eyes, or even his whole face.
“No, no, of course not, I was just wondering.” Pickens straightened, no longer comfortable to prod at Bruce, and turning his professional mode onto Dick. “You must be Richard, what an uncommon name these days, very dignified and regal too.”
“Thanks?” Dick said, a little uncertain how to react.
“I also heard you’ve never been to an actual school, and were homeschooled until now, so, we’ll need to give you a test to see if you can be placed with your age-group or if you need to be placed in a different grade,” he explained. “We can also assign you another boy to act as your guide throughout this transition, and hopefully introduce you to his friends so you can get used to being around children your age.”
Impressed at the effort, Bruce raised his brows. He wondered if this was something now implemented by the school for transfers or if this was simply special treatment for his sake. Either way, it did make him feel a bit relieved.
He just didn’t want Dick to get his hopes up in case of the likely event that several of his classmates turned out to exclusionary or actively mean. But he wanted this to work, he wanted him to have the trappings of a normal social life, he didn’t want him to end up homeschooled and trapped at the manor.
“That would be great,” he said. “When can he take the placement test?”
“He can take it now if he’s ready.”
Bruce faced Dick, brows raised questioningly. Dick just shrugged. “Okay.”
A teacher came to retrieve Dick and take him to a classroom he’d be taking his test in, while Bruce pretended to get a call so he wouldn’t spent the next thirty or so minutes in awkward silence with Pickens or roped into a stilted conversation with any of the younger teachers.
His locked screen was piled with notifications, not for himself or mentions of the Bat, but all revolving around Superman’s latest conflict. He had defeated today’s aspiring supervillain with the freezing gun with the help of a new superhero dubbed the Flash, who had run in from Central City to collect his rogue. Bruce had briefly heard of the Flash, a speedster who seemed to be Max Mercury’s successor, but he couldn’t remember the last time a pair of quote-unquote superheroes had teamed up.
He scrolled through all the reactions and videos of the two of them, including current updates and livestreams about how they’d decided to close out their team-up by checking to see which one of them was faster. Their race was still ongoing, with a handful of clips from various points in the city showing the after-images of their speeding forms, big, blurring rays of red, blue and yellow.
It was silly, as well as a waste of time and energy, but it delighted all its spectators.
He suddenly found himself recalling his interview with Clark, where he’d been asked if he’d fund a superhero team the same way Maxwell Lord sponsored their current Green Lantern, the current Mister Terrific and the winged teenager dubbed Hawkgirl.
He wondered if Superman would even agree to that offer, considering it would involve a work contract, and for him to have some kind of identification and status in this country. Which begged the question, where did this guy sleep?
A far-fetched response lingered at the corner of his mind, and it made him want to place cameras in Clark’s apartment.
At the thought of Clark, Bruce opened his tracking app and found that Clark was still at the Daily Planet, likely huddled around a screen or a window with his co-workers as they watched the race of the century happening across their city.
By the time Dick had been returned to him at the school’s entrance, Superman and the Flash had parted ways, with the Flash being the clear winner and Superman being a graceful loser. The Flash had hugged Superman and then picked up who he’d declared to be Captain Cold and jetted off back home to his local police. Superman had promptly flown off before any member of the local news could catch him.
“How did you do?” he asked Dick.
“Good, I think,” Dick said, taking two steps at a time with precise jumps. “There was one word problem that was confusing, but I think I got it right?”
Bruce remembered finding mathematics fun for the most part, and solving word problems were the precursor to him enjoying solving brain teasers, mysteries and, well, riddles. If Dick had the same potential, he could let him observe or even train on helping him with his cases, and, eventually, let him join when he was older.
It would be something to bond over.
“Do you remember what it was?”
“‘Miss Delgado has thirty-two pens on her desk for her students. She buys boxes that have nine pens each and now has eighty-six pens. How many new boxes did she buy?’” Dick quoted.
“What was your answer?”
Dick reached the paved ground with a final hop. “Six.”
Bruce sped-walked to wave for the security to open the gate for them. “How did you get that answer?”
“Subtracted thirty-two from eighty-six and got fifty-four, then I divided that by nine, so I got six.”
“Sounds correct to me.”
That earned him a relaxed posture and a relieved smile. Dick skipped up to the car and dove in the second Bruce opened the door.
“Now that that’s over and done with, I think you’re going to want to see this.” Bruce played him a slowed-down clip of Superman and the Flash racing.
He got predictably excited, whatever lingering worry about his test disappearing in favor of the news that Superman could not beat Max Mercury—or in this case, his successor—in a race.
“So, his power has limitations?” Alfred commented.
“It would seem so,” said Bruce, back to tracking Clark’s whereabouts. He had left the Daily Planet and was heading somewhere, likely in a cab, across town.
He must have been on his way to his date with Lex.
“Any chance he had led the visiting hero win?” Alfred asked, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Or would he have nothing to gain from showing that he could be overpowered?”
“He could have as some show of goodwill or gratitude towards the Flash for helping him,” Bruce reasoned, still watching the blinking dot move across the map on his screen. “But I wouldn’t call it a sign he could be overpowered, because they weren’t fighting and it was a harmless display.” Bruce thought of the earlier reports that Superman had revealed that he could shoot lasers from his eyes. “We could argue he was showing us that he has several powers, and while one of them might not measure up to a metahuman’s single power, he can still catch up to many of them.”
“Jack of all trades, master of none,” Alfred mused.
“But better than a master of one,” Bruce finished for him.
It was an unnerving thought, how it could take up to five other superheroes to take down Superman. He supposed if Wayne Enterprises did sponsor a team, they would be handpicked to rival each ability the alien had manifested so far, but that could take years to put together.
By the time they’d arrived home and had a late lunch, Clark had reached his destination, a high-end restaurant near LuthorCorp’s building that specialized in the cuisine of Southern France.
God, he wished he could have bugged that place, or even their table. He wanted to know what Lex was thinking, and what Clark could have let slip on what he thought was a real date.
Since a watched pot never boiled, he had no choice but to leave the dedicated watch of Clark’s whereabouts alone for at least ninety minutes and go through the quarterly reports on WE’s output.
By the time he’d replied with his notes and general approval, Clark had left the restaurant for the location he’d pinned as Lex Luthor’s penthouse building. Bruce kept the screen open on the side while he reviewed the responses to today’s main event and the sparse reports on the newest drug circulating in and around Gotham that he could link to the presence of Poison Ivy. So far, there were claims that whatever she put out was ‘safer’ than the rest, and that it had less side effects, which put her in direct competition with the mob.
A clash over territory and the market was due to happen soon. He needed to be ready to get in the middle of it.
He was finishing updating his file on Ivy when he decided to check on the tracker. It had been about an hour since Clark had gone home with Lex, he must be up to his gills in Lex’s expensive alcohol and being tripped up into revealing—
Clark was leaving the building.
That was fast. What had happened to make him leave that quickly? Work? An emergency? An argument?
He didn’t want to jump into anything, so he waited until Clark returned to his apartment and settled there for a good two hours, having likely cooled down or handled whatever it was, and then he shot him a simple text.
How did it go?
Clark replied almost immediately.
Both better and worse than I’d thought.
Bruce’s brows rose from their resting frown, making his forehead feel stiff and sore as he typed back: Want to talk about it?
Clark took a few minutes of typing on and off before he found something he must have deemed appropriate to say:
I don’t think you want to hear about this.
Don’t think this is something that should be discussed over text.
Bruce wouldn’t put it past Lex to try hacking Clark’s phone to find any notes or texts with vital information, or even just him discussing what he could have picked up throughout their date and its sudden, premature end.
Whatever it was, he needed to know, and he needed details.
After a minute too long of debating what would be a realistically friendly response, he sent:
We can talk on the phone if you want.
It’s nice of you to offer, but I know this isn’t worth your time.
Not liking how he was being dismissed, or even shaken off this topic, Bruce immediately replied:
I think I can decide what is and isn’t worth my time.
It’s just stupid. I’ll get over it.
So, it wasn’t anything threatening then?
It doesn’t have to be serious for me to listen. You can just vent about him to me if you want.
Why?
Because that is what friends do. Or so I have seen.
After brief consideration and taking a chance on following his gut through this conversation’s flow, he added: Also, you may have noticed that we don’t particularly like each other, so I don’t mind hearing about how much his company is compared to my own.
Clark replied with an emoji that cried and laughed at the same time and followed it up with:
So, you’re offering me an ear to be a friend or to just be petty?
I can be both at once.
You sure that wouldn’t overwhelm you?
Due to not being able to hear or see him, it took a bit to settle that that question had been a joke rather than patronizing concern.
Believe it or not, I can multitask.
Can you? I’d sure like some evidence before I take your word for it.
More joking. Teasing, really.
He took it as an invitation to continue being sarcastic.
I am rolling my eyes and typing at the same time, doesn’t that count as doing two things at once?
A row of cry-laughing emojis followed.
Your eyes might roll out of your head if you have to listen to me complain.
Bruce felt himself smile a bit, his mouth quirking up as some tension left his back.
I’m willing to take that chance.
The in-progress typing bubble showed for way too long until Clark had given in.
Okay. You’ve convinced me.
But I don’t want to do this over the phone.
Bruce jumped at that chance.
We can meet up tomorrow if you want.
Where? And to do what?
Is there anywhere you’ve wanted to revisit or try? My treat.
You realize I won’t pick a place I really want now that I have to think about paying you back.
Bruce really rolled his eyes now.
Why would I expect you to pay me back for anything? A cost for you is spare change for me.
Do I come off as that miserly or something?
No, it just makes me feel weird to get something without giving anything in return.
God, was this guy for real? Anyone else would have leaped at the chance to get Bruce’s perceived connections and access to his wealth.
He figured he had to be honest with him to avoid an annoyingly negligible push-and-pull.
I am getting something out of this.
Your company.
Clark sent him an emoji whose expression he couldn’t exactly name. It was wide-eyed and red-cheeked. Stunned? Embarrassed? Uncomfortable? Flattered?
Okay.
I don’t have work tomorrow so I can come to Gotham.
The trip is unnecessary. I will come to you.
Thanks, that’s kind of a relief.
There’s a sushi restaurant Lois’s sister told me about. It’s in a hotel midtown, so it’s definitely very pricey.
Bruce suspected he knew where it was. Harvey had mentioned it to him the last time they’d met. He had wanted to take him there after the party they were at.
In retrospect, Bruce realized that Harvey might have been angling for a date. He must have then figured that that was pointless effort and he could just shoot his shot with Bruce in an empty hall.
He still remembered the freezing shock that had gripped him when Harvey had abruptly stopped talking and crowded him against a corner. He remembered the brief, yet intense fear, and having to talk himself out of punching Harvey in the throat and and snapping his fingers off his arms. It left him to just stand there, wide-eyed and perplexed as a mouth that tasted like hard liquor slammed against his own.
The context of where they were, the randomness of the act, the confusing lack of violence in their positions, but the careless confidence that had led to Harvey making an advance this way—it had all been something he hadn’t anticipated happening to him.
Or, it could happen to Bruce Wayne, as Harvey and everyone else at that party had seen him. It certainly wouldn’t happen to the Bat, because even Selina’s kisses had felt more out of curiosity and seeking a connection than actual compelling desire.
He wasn’t convinced Harvey’s advances were pure desire either. It had felt opportunistic rather than something born of genuine interest. He had either just wanted the satisfaction of being the first man to have fucked Bruce Wayne, or he just wanted anyone who seemed agreeable enough to hook up with him.
What he still didn’t understand was why had he been certain that this wouldn’t go wrong? A man as clever and socially intelligent as him would have known what interest looked like, and Bruce certainly hadn’t been making eyes at him, or any man.
He wondered if Lex had done something similar to Clark, tried to force him to do something he wasn’t comfortable with. Again.
The thought made tongues of flame lick at his edges.
The memory of how Harvey’s stubble had felt rubbing on his face added to the climbing temperature. His stubble had also stung his palm when he’d settled on slapping Harvey hard enough to send him stumbling sideways. The alternative would have been a punch that broke his nose.
Breathing out his rising anger, he focused back on Clark, replying with a link of the restaurant in mind and a question mark.
Clark quickly sent 'I think that’s it!’ followed by a smiling emoji.
Didn’t think you’d be the type to enjoy sushi.
I haven’t tried it yet so we’ll find out if I do enjoy it.
That surprised him. Clark had been in Metropolis for how long and he hadn’t sampled all the available cuisines? Surely there had to be some in his price range.
Not that it mattered now. He could use this experience as a way to further coax him into getting comfortable in this friendship, and soon, they could be doing this regularly and he’d what he needed bit by bit.
Looking forward to see how you react to this new experience.
Same. I had octopus for the first time today and am now curious about the rest of the fancy seafood.
Bruce did not want to think about Lex feeding Clark octopus off his fork, but the visual, loaded with manipulative intent, fed the fire under his skin until reached his throat.
He figured this was where he should end this conversation and they quickly settled on where and when they’d meet before bidding each other goodnight.
Now all he had to do was wait a couple of hours.
He had tried sleeping earlier than usual, but he was so used to crashing before sunrise, so he had spent a frustrating amount of time tossing and turning. When he had something to do early, be it with the company, anything legal, or involving Dick now, he tended to power through an all-nighter then crash the second he got home.
Now he couldn’t just show up to his meeting with Clark running on fumes and barely able to steer the conversation which way he wanted it. He needed to be present and aware enough to be decent company, and ask all the questions he could find the opportunity for.
Leaving Dick with Alfred, he drove himself out of Gotham and across the bridge into Metropolis, taking the chance to play Deftones’s new album, barely paying attention to the lyrics, knowing he had at least three months of hyper-fixating on this release to learn the words.
In the last third of the bridge, the reminder of why he was primarily here showed itself. Superman flew overhead, rushing from one end of the city to the other. He should find out in due time what had happened this early in the afternoon.
By the time the album had ended and looped back to the first track, he had hit the middle of the city and needed to call Clark.
Clark picked up after five rings.
“Hey!” he greeted cheerfully, a little out of breath. “I was about to ask when you’re going to head over.”
“I’m already here,” Bruce said, glancing at the map on his screen. “What’s your address again?”
Bruce knew Clark’s address, he just wanted confirmation that he could come over.
“Wow, I thought you’d come later in the afternoon! I’m not even dressed yet!” Clark shuffled around loudly enough for the speaker to pick up the rustling of clothes, like he was hurriedly changing. “I’d tell you to meet me at the hotel, but it’s way too early for us to eat.”
“That’s fine, I can just come up,” Bruce said, before realizing that that sounded entitled and rude and adding “If you don’t mind.”
“No! No! Come up, but just, like, don’t judge me too hard, okay?”
“On what?”
“My apartment. It’s pretty lousy by your standards. Might turn you off me.”
Bruce rolled his eyes. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“All right, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, joking, playful. “I live on Forty-Seven Whitethorn Street, eighth floor, Apartment 8B.”
“Be right there.”
The call ended and within ten minutes Bruce had found a place to park and called the elevator. He didn’t get the chance to knock because Clark had opened the door before his knuckles could touch the wood.
Barefoot and in dark-blue jeans with frayed edges and a faded sky blue T-shirt, Clark Kent somehow seemed bigger than he did in dress shoes and a suit. His hair somehow seemed more untamed than it had been the last two times they’d met, looking like he’d just walked through a very windy area or stood in front of a giant fan, and there was a slight flush to his face, the kind from exertion rather than heat.
What had he been doing?
“Hello.”
“Hey,” Clark said nervously, leaning in the doorway, blocking Bruce’s view inside. “Can’t believe you’re actually here.”
“I have been known to leave my corner of Gotham, it’s how we met,” Bruce attempted to joke, uncertain if it landed.
“No, yeah, but I was talking more about Bruce Wayne being in my building,” he explained. “It’s like one of those dream scenarios that don’t feel weird until I wake up.”
Bruce mirrored his pose, hand near Clark’s on the doorframe, leaning in to teasingly ask “You dream of this situation often?”
Flush deepening, Clark stiffly pushed off the doorway, eyes avoidant. “No, but between the three of you I am starting to question if I’m dreaming.”
“The three of us?”
“Mhm, you, Lex and Oliver Queen all find me interesting all of the sudden.” Clark stepped back to lead him in. “You want anything to drink?”
“You got coffee?” Bruce shut the door behind him, stopping to take off his shoes and place them in the row Clark had by the door—a pair of slippers, two pairs of sneakers, two pairs of dress shoes, all no less than three years-old. So, his closet was small enough to not hold his footwear.
“I have instant coffee, which is probably not what you’d like,” Clark said. “I have teas though. If not we can just go to the Jitters across the street.”
Bruce needed time to snoop around and place his bugs. He needed Clark to be distracted for that, and to facilitate that opportunity he needed to be a bit rude or dismissive, which could shift things away from the trust he was trying to build here.
“I only drink tea and coffee that’s brewed,” he stated. “It’s what I was brought up on by my butler, teabags and instant coffee taste off to me.”
Clark’s mouth wobbled, as if he were uncertain whether he should laugh or not. “Jeez, I don’t know how I forgot about the butler. Can’t believe that’s still a thing these days. Would have thought it fell out of fashion after the Second World War.”
“No, household staff are still very much a necessity to all who can afford it,” he explained. “But since it’s just me, Alfred was the only consistent member and everyone else like gardeners and maids, came and went.”
“It’s not just you anymore though,” he pointed out cheerfully. “How is he, by the way?”
“Good. I’m getting him enrolled in my old school and he’s excited so far,” he explained, placing his hands in his pockets, feeling the small spy-tech in their little plastic bags.
Clark shifted closer, searching his face. “But you’re not. You’re worried about how he’s going to adjust.”
Bruce couldn’t help the uneasy grimace his mouth pulled. “Is it that obvious?”
“Oh, yeah,” he chuckled softly, eyes crinkling as he smiled. “I don’t blame you though, going from one environment to another can be jarring, especially for a child. But he seems adaptable.”
“You think so?”
“Sure, he’s been through something awful the last couple of months and he’s still talkative and curious and polite, especially for a kid in this day and age,” Clark said. “I mean, I’m no professional, but he seems like he’s going to handle this next phase better than you’d think.”
“I didn’t even tell you what I’m thinking,” Bruce pointed out, a bit bothered, a bit confused.
“You don’t need to,” Clark said kindly. “You’re not that hard to read, especially when you’re uncomfortable.”
That was an unsettling fact to express. He had always figured that Alfred was the only one who could tell how he was feeling, and that was due to decades of familiarity.
“I think I’m always uncomfortable,” he said. “Or look to be uncomfortable. How can you read any difference when it’s always the same thing?”
There was a conspiratorial affect to Clark’s expression now, as if he knew some fun fact he wasn’t keen on sharing. It unsettled Bruce further. “Oh, this conversation definitely needs a drink. You want to head down to Jitters and then head to the restaurant from there?”
He should say yes, because hanging out in public places was what friends did regularly, but he didn’t want to be surrounded by the aimless noise of movement and chatter, by people whose presence he didn’t need to tolerate to meet his goal? He wanted no distractions and to be able to focus entirely on what he was being told, and needed the secluded privacy that would allow intimate details to flow freely just like they had in the speakeasy.
How was he supposed to explain that without sounding like an ass?
“I’d like the drink but not the environment,” he said. “I haven’t been in places like that in a long while. The way they are…they don’t suit me.”
Clark tilted his face downwards to emphasize his raised brows, hitched so high they vanished under his messy fringe and widened his eyes. “If you’re too good for plebeian spots and interests then what are you doing hanging out with me?”
He needed to backtrack quick!
“No, that’s not—that isn’t—that’s not what I meant—I’m just—”
“I’m kidding,” Clark said, sparing him from further spluttering embarrassment. “If being in a packed place makes you nervous, you can just tell me.”
“It does,” he said, exhaling his initial panic. “I don’t go places where people can recognize me. And if I do, it’s a place where they don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“Yeah, I figured. Can’t be fun, having people staring at you and filming you wherever you go,” Clark said sympathetically. “Want me to go get us the drinks while you wait here?”
“Yes,” he blurted immediately, relieved at the chance he’d tripped into.
He huffed out an amused sound. “Any idea what you want or should I order for you?”
Bruce hoped being a little difficult bought him more time to sniff around. “I don’t know the menu.”
Clark gave him a considering look then nodded. “I’ll surprise you then.”
Within five minutes, Clark put on the second pair of sneakers by the door, pocketed his keys and wallet and left. Bruce waited until he heard the elevator doors shut to start placing his gear in the most advantageous spots in the apartment, like the upper end of the corner facing the living room, the space between the cupboard doors in the kitchen that faces the fire escape window, and the top of the bedroom doorframe.
Once he’d made it into the bedroom, he was stuck debating whether he should place cameras in here and the bathroom. It wasn’t as if Clark was a dangerous man who needed to be monitored that closely, there were no drugs or guns or stacks of cash hidden behind the shower tiles, and he didn’t think there was a hidden safe in the bedroom.
Still, he did need to check, just for his own peace of mind.
While he debated the ethics of recording footage of Clark changing and bathing, he went around the apartment, scanning it for anything of note.
There really was no reason for Clark to be worried about Bruce dropping in unexpectedly. He kept the place quite neat, even if there wasn’t a conscious effort for interior decoration. The furniture was pretty standard, plain, in shades of a light, dusty, inoffensive blue, the cupboards were wood painted black and full of sparse, mismatched mugs, plastic cups and containers he must have kept leftovers with. The plates and cooking utensils had some consistency, bought in packs, and the drawers were mostly empty, save for one full of random assorted things like clasps, tea candles, a long plastic lighter, wooden chopsticks, an orange can opener, a corkscrew, a spare set of keys—likely for his parents’ home and cars—and a neat row on one side made up of press badges and hanging name tags, from whatever conferences, events and meetings he had been to.
The fridge was half-empty, with nothing noteworthy within it but three types of hot sauce and a jar of something called harissa. Bruce uncapped it for a quick, curious sniff and regretted it immediately, as the stench of spicy peppers punched his nose and tore through his sinuses.
So, Clark enjoyed spicy food. It was odd for someone of his background, but he wouldn’t call it worth looking into. Still, it was good to know. For their next outing, he could take him somewhere that indulged that taste.
Out from the kitchen, he checked for any other vantage points he could place cameras in and passively observed the personal touches around the apartment. There were a few small frames on the small tables bordering the living room couch and armchairs, and bigger ones on the bookshelf near the bedroom and bathroom.
Two were of him and his parents while he was a child. In one he must have been kindergarten-aged, bordered by his kneeling parents, his mother in a floral gown, big sunglasses and sunhat while both he and his father wore Metropolis Meteors caps and squinted at the camera. In the other, he was indoors on some sort of stage and looked to be around ten or eleven. It must have been an event, because he was in a white button-down, blue shorts and worn out cloth shoes that might have been secondhand, and his parents were in similarly formal clothes.
Beaming with missing teeth, he held a certificate in his hands. Bruce had to pick up the frame to squint at it, reading the award of First Place in a regional writing competition for his age group.
It was a sweet moment, possibly even the one where Clark knew what he had wanted to do with his life, but it made him feel bitter and miserable.
At this point in time, Bruce would have been thirteen and expelled from the Gotham Academy for Boys for knocking out a classmate. Feeling out of his depth and stuck having to follow the narrow requirements left in Thomas Wayne’s will, Alfred had then transferred him to Excelsior, the same boarding school Lex Luthor and Oliver Queen had attended. The same one he’d met Harvey Dent in.
The thought of Dick ending up in the same scenario made reflux threaten to scald his throat. He didn’t want to watch someone else relive his experience, he wanted Dick to have what he couldn’t.
He wanted him to have what Clark had had.
Bruce set down the frame and went to examine the bookcase. There were more pictures of Clark at competitions across the years, in the last he looked closest to how he did now, no doubt during his final years at university, but here he wasn’t wearing glasses and his hair been somewhat tamed.
Clark Kent had had an active academic life, entering writing competitions, debate tournaments, written for his school and university newspapers, been in at least two plays, been on the rugby team—which explained his form—and gone to what must have been an Eighties-themed prom.
The powder blue suit he’d worn had clearly been borrowed from a bigger man, and his date’s peachy gown was also ill-fitting, her hair frizzy and held up by hairspray while his was firm with gel. She had strawberry-blonde hair, light blue eyes and that awkward hunching pose tall, underweight kids tended to have.
This was no doubt Lana Lang, who had showed up in tagged pictures of Clark on Instagram.
The background check he’d done on Clark had unearthed evidence of at least one relationship during his time at Met U. Group photos of him at events or activities sitting with his arms around a red-haired girl tagged as Lori Lemaris.
Lana and Lori both had resembled Lex’s sister, Lena Luthor, whose hair was closer to auburn and whose posture held unyielding confidence in the one time Bruce had met her.
Lena looked like a female version of Lex, who too had had reddish hair before it had fallen off from chemical poisoning. All four of them had long faces with narrow jaws, full, defined lips, big, sharp, light-blue eyes, reddish hair, and big, easy smiles.
The thought of Clark having a type bothered him for some reason.
He objectively knew everyone had things they responded to more than others, and that few had any control over what they considered attractive, but it did add another layer of complexity to someone who had seemed so bland and inoffensive.
Moving on from the remaining pictures of Clark and his parents at his university graduation and a holiday dinner with Lana Lang, her parents, and who he remembered to be Pete Ross and his parents, Bruce scanned the books Clark had on his shelf.
There were the expected titles from journalists, but its wasn’t all work-related nonfiction, there were a few fantasy series, half of which had mismatched covers with different cover styles and page-sizes, and the only ones in hardcover were the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Bruce picked one up, examining its condition and design, figuring this must have been the only buy not from a secondhand store, possibly even a special edition.
He hadn’t read for pleasure in ages. He should start, even just to set a screen-less example for Dick.
There wasn’t anything else here. An easy amount of affects to pack and move in one drive from one rental to the other. All his other things must have been back in Kansas, like all his medals, trophies and awards, the newspapers he’d been featured in, other pictures, clothes, books, anything that could give Bruce an idea why Superman had chosen him…
In the end, he settled for placing a camera just in the bedroom, right above the window frame.
As he settled back on his heels, Bruce felt a draft from the window’s edges and gave it a nudge. Unlocked, it slid open.
Curious, he checked the window in the living room and found it too was unlocked.
While it seemed likely that any robber or murderer or villainous metahuman would come up to the eighth floor via the fire escape…it was still an oddly pointless risk to take.
Why would Clark leave his windows open, especially when locking them smothered the noise coming up from the street.
Putting a pin in that for later, he decided that this would be useful if he ever wanted to come check on his spy tech. He could just slip in while Clark was out.
He heard the door unlock and put on his best neutral expression as he faced Clark.
“Sorry, there was a line, and the guy in front of me couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of plant-based milk and took like an hour to tell the barista how he wanted his latte,” Clark recounted annoyedly, kicking off his sneakers and nudging them back into their spot by the door.
“It’s fine, I don’t mind waiting,” he said, approaching him.
Clark held up the cup tray. “The one facing you is yours.”
Bruce mumbled a thank-you as he took his drink and sniffed it. It was good coffee, hot too, but there was the undercurrent of something else he couldn’t place.
He uncapped it to let out the steam and get a clearer whiff, still at a loss.
Clark dropped on one end of the couch and tapped the space opposite him. Bruce obeyed, stiffly sitting down with his back straight and his knees together.
“So, what were we saying before I left?”
Bruce took a tentative sip of his coffee. It had a sweet yet burnt tang to it, and a nutty scent. Different, but not overpowering. He liked it. “You were going to explain how you can ‘read’ me.”
“Ah, about that,” Clark took a long sip of his drink, as if it were cooler than Bruce’s, or he didn’t mind being scalded. “I don’t actually know how to explain how I read people.”
“You write for a living and you can’t put your feelings to words?” he mocked, the thought leaving his mouth before I could think better of it.
Thankfully, Clark had a good sense of humor and cracked up. “You got me there! But you’re right, I’ll give it a shot.”
Bruce leaned forward a bit, giving all signs he was listening intently.
“So, body language, right? If you pay attention to it enough, you can tell how someone’s feeling without them telling you, and even if they don’t want you to know, and then when you pick up on other stuff like tone and expressions, you can get to know someone just from their reactions to certain things.”
Bruce knew all about that from observing people, both through screens and disguises, it helped him file them into categories, know what swayed and what scared them, and how each one was likely to respond to certain bribes or threats or attacks.
His problem, though, was that he knew how to recognize these tells and types but he didn’t have enough practice with the subtler, more harmless types of human interaction. He knew these faces and voices very well, but had yet to figure out how to emulate them himself on the spot, or how to keep it up for long. He needed to have time to prepare himself to give a performance, just as he did when he got into the headspace of the Bat.
But coming off as slow and sheltered was harder than actively being cunning and violent, those, along with the strangeness provided by his costumes and already unnatural aura helped with the intimidation and the perception that he was more dangerous than he actually was.
“Kind of a detective’s interest, isn’t it?” Bruce said neutrally. “Studying how people act and react to figure stuff out about them.”
“I mean, I am an investigative journalism—some of the time, at least. I enjoy a good mystery and love putting pieces together to see the bigger picture.” Clark paused his sip, looked down into his cup, his voice echoing into it. “I am also terribly nosy.”
“Are you now?”
“Mhm, I love eavesdropping on people,” Clark said earnestly, pressing on the backs of his ears to make them stick out. “Nothing like catching part of a random conversation to get my ears popping out like Dumbo.”
A reactionary laugh came out of Bruce like a cough. He couldn’t rein it in after he’d watched the slow but pleased spread of Clark’s lips, encouraged by the grin to keep going, and he didn’t even know why. It must have been from nerves and exhaustion, because why else would he laugh at a joke this stupid.
Once he’d gotten a grip, he cleared his throat and asked, “About the nosiness and journalism, I really wanted to ask you a few things about that, but I didn’t get the chance after our interview.”
“Oh, right,” he took another gulp from his drink. “Shoot.”
He figured it was best to start with the least personal of his curiosities, and then he could work his way up to Superman and Lex. “You wrote an article about a criminal meta who seems to have set up shop in Gotham. How did you find out about her, was there anything you left out due to word limit, and are you still following her case?”
Did that sound too specific? Should have he have tried to phrase them in a more casual way?
Shit, he sounded like he was interrogating him because that was how he was used to asking about this stuff.
“Wow, you have been sitting on that one for a while,” Clark said, adjusting his position on the couch, leaning forward and angling himself in Bruce’s direction, folding one leg under him and resting the other one back on its heel as he set an arm along the back of the couch. His hand had settled right on the midpoint. If he just reached out he could touch Bruce’s shoulder.
“So, I have an old friend who works in downtown, he used to work for Morgan Edge but he turned into an informant, and I visit him every now and then to catch up, and sometimes, I give him a call if I feel something’s up,” he explained, surprising Bruce. “I had heard about these odd public health safety reports, how these plants kept showing up in places where people smelled something terrible or odd or even got their senses altered around it, and there was no conclusive response on what it was. At around the same time, there was talk on Metropolis’s corner of social media about a drug that was making the rounds at parties where all the people there had had the same reactions reported from interacting with those odd plants.”
Entranced, Bruce found himself mirroring Clark’s position, getting comfortable as he listened with extreme focus, taken aback by how freely Clark was sharing his story. How did he know someone who had worked for a kingpin?
“Anyway, I called him to ask if he knew what this new drug was, since I had written an article on Drop back when I was in university, and he told me that it was not something easy to find, it came in limited supply and only showed up at gatherings. Apparently it’s some kind of gas, because so many people coming down from its high swear they took nothing and must have been drugged, and even after tests were done on them, no one could figure out what it was. All they knew was that the dealer was a woman who called herself Poison Ivy and that, before she’d started selling this stuff, she used to show up to places and test it on people.”
How on Earth did he never hear about any of this outside of Clark?
“What would happen until she got her formula finalized?”
“Reactions varied from vomiting to mood swings to hallucinations to anaphylactic shock,” Clark said. “It took a while for people to notice that these weren’t your standard accidents from partying too hard.
“And you just followed this story for how long?”
Clark blew out his exhalation, emphasizing exhaustion. “Months. Kept debating if I was chasing an urban legend or if I was onto something.”
“When did you figure it was the latter?”
Clark opened his mouth but seemed to think better of his response, opting to throw back the rest of his drink instead.
“Is it classified or something?”
He pulled a displeased face. “No, I just think this topic is going to ruin the mood.”
That was the worst thing to say to someone as curious as him. “I’m from Gotham, Clark, I can handle some unsettling news reports.”
“Glimpsing them is one thing, discussing them is another,” he said. “Forgive me if this sounds patronizing, but I’m taking your history into consideration here.”
“My history,” Bruce stated flatly. “Which part of it?”
Clark grew visibly regretful. “Look, I didn’t mean to bring it up, I’m just saying I didn’t want to upset you or anything.”
“Clark, what are you talking about?”
His eyes flit to the side nervously. “Your kidnapping.”
Oh. That.
He tended not to think about that, fighting off the memories when the scar on his chest stiffened and ached during cold winter nights. A long with all the others he'd gotten as an adult.
It had been almost fifteen years.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but it was ages ago. I can handle talking about stuff like that.”
Clark shifted back slightly, eyeing him with consideration. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Not particularly, but was this the type of thing friends discussed? The classmates who’d been friendly with him back when it had happened had been visibly uncomfortable whenever the subject was brought up. Oliver and Harvey and their hanger-ons had at most expressed their vague sympathies and politely told him that they were glad he’d been rescued in time.
It was something he was dreading having to discuss with Dick, because he feared it happening to him.
“Off the record?” he asked, just to be sure.
Clark made a humored huffing noise. “This isn’t an interview, so, yes.”
“Do people usually discuss major life events with you outside of interviews?”
“More often than you’d think,” he sighed, eyes growing unfocused as an unsettled quirk tugged at his lips.
Something had happened recently, something that still bothered him.
He was going to go out on a limb and say it had something to do with his disastrous date.
“Did Lex say something weird to you?”
Clark tapped his fingers on the back of the couch. “Define ‘weird’.”
So, Lex had said a variety of notable things then. He must have gotten quite drunk in his presence again. An odd mistake to repeat in the company of a reporter.
“In this case, I’d say ‘weird’ is whatever is bothering you, or what made you end the night early.”
“Well, those were two separate things, maybe even three, but—” he stopped, gaze raising back up to scrutinize Bruce. “How did you know it ended early?”
Shit.
After a too-long pause of him scrambling for a decent response, he went with “You responded immediately when I checked up on you. I would have thought that, at that time, you would have still been with him if things had gone well.”
Though he still watched him, Clark visibly relaxed. “Right. Yeah. It did end earlier than I thought too.”
“So, it wasn’t your choice to end it there?”
An uncertain expression had his mouth half-open as he looked up to the side, searching for something to say as he scratched at the back of his neck. “I mean, it was my choice, but I have a feeling that if I didn’t leave he would have kicked me out not long after anyway.”
“Not long after what?” Bruce asked, invested. “Did you have an argument?”
“No, just a bizarre misunderstanding. Which I feel I should have seen coming considering how fast things went, but then again, the way dinner went had me thinking this was heading somewhere else so I feel like I kind made a fool of myself,” he rambled, hand still at the base of his head, playing at his hair. “God, it felt like whiplash.”
The curiosity was going to start eating at him if he didn’t get straight answers now.
“Clark, what happened? Why was it weird? Why did you get whiplash?”
Clark blew out another long breath, steeling himself. “During the date, he kind of gave me a blank check to ask him about whatever rumors I’d heard about him, just so he can confirm or deny, or just give context, I guess. I don’t know, maybe it was some kind of test, and I can’t tell if I passed or not, but we ended up talking about something really personal and he kind of got angry, but not angry enough to call things off?”
“What was it about?”
He shook his head.
“What?”
“I don’t think I should share what he did. It’s really none of our business.”
For fuck’s sake, was he really going to make him guess?
“Can you at least tell me how it made you feel about him?”
He dropped the hand that played at his hair, it landed limply on his lap. “I kind of felt bad for him. It pretty much killed the mood, and I thought that was going to be it, but he insisted I go home with him, so…”
“So?” Bruce nudged. “You had another ‘misunderstanding’ at his place then?”
Clark embarrassedly glanced up. “You could say that.”
“Was it like the one in the limo?”
“It went way past the moment in the limo.”
Unease trickled into Bruce’s gut, making his midsection feel heavy all of the sudden. “Did he try to make you say or do something you didn’t want?”
“No, no, I wanted to,” he sighed, raising the hand on the back of the couch to palm at his face. “I just didn’t want what came after.”
The vagueness was going to kill him.
“What did he do?”
“Gave me a reality check, I guess,” he mumbled, palm over his glasses, as if avoiding looking at Bruce made discussing this easier. “He seemed to get the wrong idea about why I had agreed to go on this date to begin with, and when I told him that I wasn’t here for some kind of come-up or favor or anything, he shifted gears and offered me this arrangement.”
“An arrangement,” Bruce echoed dully.
“Yeah, he said we could do it again weekly, maybe even more than that depending on our schedules.”
So, he hadn’t gotten everything he’d needed from Clark in that night, he had plans to lure whatever details he needed from him over time. He must have used whatever upsetting backstory he’d shared as setup for Clark to return the favor and share something with equal weight, or even what could appear silly in comparison. After all, whatever venting session Lex Luthor had had over his daddy issues, or the accident that had lost him his hair, or even the various clashes and scandals he’d had across his career, had to have felt more important to Clark than sharing where Superman went when he wasn’t saving the day.
Bruce ought to try that, trading one mystery for another.
“An arrangement to do what? Go on dates and discuss the validity of his rumors?” he asked.
Clark took that as a joke, giggling softly. “Imagine, that would have at least been closer to what I was aiming for.”
“Then what did he want?”
He dropped his hand from his face, turning it up questioningly. “What else?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“Bruce, come on, what do you think he took me home to do?”
For some stupid reason, the most obvious of answers had slipped his mind.
“You slept with him,” he stated flatly.
There was none of the expected smugness or preening he’d gleaned from high-society orbiters who boasted about their experiences with such public figures. If anything, Clark now seemed upset.
“Yeah, I did,” he said quietly.
Brain stalled by the effort it took not to imagine how that had gone, all his sense and tact had been on hold long enough for him to ask, “How was it?”
Clark bit his lip, an immediate flush coloring his cheeks. “Good.”
Still dumbstruck, he continued, “Good how?”
“What? You want details?”
He really shouldn’t want to know, not when he still saw flashes of the security footage whenever he blinked, not when he already knew what Clark’s erect cock looked like, and knew faces and noises Clark made when it was being stimulated.
It wouldn’t take that much effort to imagine what he was like during sex.
Feeling brave as well as stupid, Bruce replied, “Maybe I do.”
Clark’s face burned as he inhaled loudly.
He’d gone too far. There was a line he was supposed to follow to get the answers he needed and he had crossed it, and now he was going to get pegged as suspicious or just as a massive creep—
“He rode me,” Clark blurted out, watching him with unblinking eyes. “It must have been a while since he’d done that. He got tired quick. So I flipped us over and went until we both finished.”
He swallowed, too invested to be uncomfortable. “And that was ‘good’ for you?”
“I think so. I was pretty nervous. Didn’t really know what I was doing, so, I just did what my ex liked, and it worked, but then he said—” his breath hitched, he shifted aimlessly in his seat, eyes darker all of the sudden.
“What?” Bruce urged, mouth dry.
Clark’s eyes met his, and the affected, hazy look in them made his blood rush like he’d just sunk into hot water. “He said he’d never come that hard in his life.”
There was no stopping his imagination once he’d gotten such slim yet effective descriptions, about how Lex had planned to maintain control of the situation, how Clark had taken initiative, and how effective it had been, and in a way that couldn’t be faked.
Bruce doubted men could fake orgasms the way women did, so, the result and the ensuing offer could not have been entirely based on emotional manipulation or trading favors. Men like Lex did not give out compliments easily, and they certainly didn’t exaggerate personal positives, especially towards people they looked down upon.
It could have only been genuine.
Clark had fucked the uptight, conniving mentality out of Lex Luthor long enough for him to express surprise and fumble his plan by asking for them to schedule hookups. If he’d been in his right mind he would have known that Clark Kent was not the type to fuck with no strings attached.
Which brought back the question of what Clark had been hoping to get out of this whole interaction?
“Why did you do it?”
Clark blinked, the haze vanishing from his eyes. “Huh?”
“You don’t seem like the type to rush into things. So, why did you do that with him?”
He shrugged. “It was a new experience, and I wanted to see where it would take me.”
Of all the men to experiment with. Clark surely could have had safer, less volatile options in university, or even in the copy room at work!
“So, you wanted to see if you were into men or something and he was just…available?” he asked, riskily echoing Clark’s own statement to Lex from the security footage.
Jesus Christ, if that had been it then Clark could have just waited and Bruce could have set him up with Harvey. He may have been as two-faced as most people in law and politics were, but at least in this case he’d be upfront about what he’d wanted.
“No, I already knew I liked both, I’d just never had the chance to be with another man,” he explained. “It wasn’t mainly about him being a guy, or even that he clearly had experience.”
“Then what was it?”
Clark shrugged again, practically squirming with embarrassment. “I’d just never been pursued before. It threw me off and excited me at the same time.”
Bruce gawked at him. “You fucked him because he stroked your ego? Are you that easy?”
Instead of sinking further into self-consciousness, Clark’s gaze snapped back to his with a surprisingly firm glare, lending an enraged tint to his flushed face. “You’re oversimplifying things.”
“I don’t think I am based on what you’ve told me,” he said. “You put yourself in this situation just because you wanted to be chased, and I can’t even see why, because I doubt someone like you is hurting for attention.”
Clark jerked with immediate, jarring alarm, as if Bruce just pressed on an injury. “What do you mean ‘someone like me’? Who do you think I am exactly?”
“A healthy, stable, social, ambitious, highly palatable and conventionally attractive man,” Bruce stated the most obvious fact in the world with mild confusion. “Don’t tell me someone as perceptive as you doesn’t know how he’s perceived.”
Clark didn’t quite relax but he remained wary, face half-turned eye Bruce with hesitant curiosity. “You think I’m attractive?”
Bruce frowned, annoyed that that was the part Clark was hung up on. “Yes?”
He snorted, but Bruce couldn’t tell if it was from disbelief or amusement. “Didn’t think I was your type, or his for that matter.”
“You’re not,” he said immediately, thinking of Selina. “You really should have known that and not bothered with him.”
“Not known I wasn’t the type of a guy who came onto me twice, begged me for a date, and told me I was the best he’d ever had?” Clark snarked. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”
“When you put it that way—”
“Are you done judging me or is this going to keep going until dinner?” Clark snapped tersely. “You think I don’t feel stupid enough already? You think I’m not mad at myself for thinking it was going to go any different? I know people in your tax bracket don’t commonly date people from mine, and when they do it makes headlines.”
“Then why?”
“I told you why, and you made fun of me, which is a pretty lousy thing to do when someone is opening up to you,” he said. “If you really want to start making friends you need to work on being a little sympathetic to other people’s problems, or at least act like you are.”
Bruce jaws slammed together, narrowly missing his tongue. He had unmistakably fucked up now, and over something that shouldn’t even matter to him. Why did he care if Clark had turned down being Lex Luthor’s mistress? Why did he care about what had possessed Clark to even agree to a date? Why did he need to know how Clark was in bed?
Why did this entire situation piss him off more than Poison Ivy setting up shop on his turf? What was wrong with him?
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, chest tight. “I haven’t talked to anyone about this kind of stuff before, or experienced it myself, so I don’t know how to put myself in your shoes so the whole thing is just very exasperating to me.”
“You never did something stupid for someone you liked?” Clark asked disbelievingly.
He thought of his conflicted feelings about Selina, and how he’d let her get away with things he’d beaten others over, but what she did was ultimately harmless in the grand scheme of things. She didn’t actively hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it on some level, and he wouldn’t have looked the other way if she were harming innocents.
“No,” he said.
“Never? Not once did you waste your time and effort to impress a classmate or get a date or even some acknowledgement that you exist?” Clark rethought his question. “What am I saying? You’re Bruce Wayne, you must have had people chasing you since you were kids.”
“I went to all-boys schools,” he pointed out. “And, outside of that, I didn’t socialize that much.”
“Nobody at university?”
“Didn’t attend most of my lectures, just turned in the work.”
“Huh,” Clark breathed, expression inconclusive. “There go all the rumors Cat loves peddling.”
“What?”
“Cat Grant, my co-worker at the Planet, she covers entertainment, and a lot of it includes gossip about celebrities and public figures,” he explained. “She’s actually where I got all the rumors I asked him about over dinner.”
“And what does she say about me?”
An air of exhaustion came over him. “I’d really prefer not to go through this again, and you already got weird about stuff that didn’t involve you.”
“I won’t get angry at you for relaying someone else’s gossip,” Bruce told him. “I told you before, I’m not like him.”
“If you say so,” he said, back to drumming his fingers on the arch of the couch. “Where do you want to start? The wildest or the dumbest rumors?”
“Dumbest, I guess,” he said, hoping for something that will lighten the mood and soothe Clark’s irritation with him. “Start there and work up to the wildest ones.”
“Okay. Is it true you’re always high when you’re at work or events?”
“I wish.”
Clark’s mouth twitched. “Is it true you bought a T. rex skeleton?”
“Yes, I donated it to the museum to boost local tourism.”
“Oh, nice,” Clark said, taken by surprise. “Did you date Silver St. Cloud?”
“No.”
“How about that lawyer, Dent?”
Bruce bristled at the thought. “When did that rumor start?”
“According to Cat, years and years ago. She says you two have been on-and-off since high school.”
Bruce didn’t doubt that their interaction last December had added fuel to that fire.
“No. Not then, not now.”
Warmed up, and perhaps now distracted by the game of open questions, Clark eased up, leaning further against the back of the couch and watching him with humored intrigue. “Did you get expelled from one of your fancy private schools?”
“I thought that was common knowledge?”
“That’s true?” Clark asked, loud with surprise.
“Yes, it’s why I got shipped off to the same school Harvey, Oliver and your one-night stand were at.”
That jab earned him a soft kick to the shin, making him jerk. “What was that for?”
“You know what that was for!” Clark shook his head, moving on. “Anyway, what did you get expelled for? I never got a straight answer on it.”
“I broke a guy’s nose.”
The expected alarm or judgement or disappointment didn’t replace his curiosity. “What did he do?”
“Called my butler an ethnic slur.”
Clark was appropriately disturbed as much as he was confused. “Was this someone before Alfred?”
“No, it was him.”
“How…?”
“We were discussing the events around and during the First World War during History class, and the teacher asked us to discuss if we had any stories passed down to us by relatives about that time period. I mentioned what Alfred had told me about the Ottoman Empire, and a classmate got ‘offended’ and told me that all the genocides they had committed never happened, that I was repeating lies and propaganda, and that my guardian was a—” he stopped, feeling himself get violently angry. “He didn’t expect me to know what those words meant. But I did.”
“Alfred is…Greek?” Clark guessed.
“Armenian,” he explained. “His mother was born in Iraq, part of the community that had fled there, and her family had immigrated to England before things had gotten bad over there.”
“Jeez, I don’t blame you for getting mad on his behalf,” Clark said. “How did he take it?”
“Not good. Told me he didn’t need defending and that I should have let it go because now I was in a situation that was completely avoidable,” he said bitterly. “I don’t let go of things easily, especially if they’re unfair, especially if I can do something about it.”
When there was no follow-up, Bruce sought out Clark and found him watching him, seeming deep in thought. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s clearly something.”
“Well, yeah, but I just remembered what we talked about during your interview, about your reasons behind your foundation, and taking guardianship of Dick,” he said. “It seems like this side of you has been there for a while, but you just haven’t let yourself act on it.”
If only Clark knew.
“I’m trying to help where I can,” he said, open-ended yet honest. “Can’t tell if I’m making a difference or not.”
“You are,” Clark said softly.
Bruce held back the urge to ask how he would know if he did. Clark was thinking of his and his company’s charitable efforts, a lot which had been investigated, rethought and redone lately. Too early to see if the Wayne name had positively impacted any of the people it sought to help.
At least, that’s how it felt so far.
“You don’t believe me,” Clark noted.
“Not really.”
“Any way I can change your mind?”
Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“All right, I’ll see what I can do.” Clark checked his wristwatch. “You want to head out now? It will take about an hour with traffic to reach the restaurant, maybe more.”
Finishing what was left of his cooled coffee, Bruce stood.
They headed down to his car in silence that seemed to unnerve him more than it did Clark, who seemed to be lost in thought. All of the thoughts he wanted to break the silence with were too tied to previous topics and ran the risk of being bothersome, if not worth looking into.
He had so many detailed questions, things that would go beyond the logs in the Metropolis City Police Department’s system, things Clark could know. But he couldn’t ask them without ringing all of Clark’s alarm bells.
There was no way someone like him would just let Bruce’s preoccupation with this case slide. There had to be a way to get his help on this, to keep getting his updates, his hunches, his theories, his intel from his source…
He would have to approach Clark as the Bat.
As a way to apologize for offending Clark earlier, Bruce ordered a sushi boat with some of the more expensive selections of fish. He hadn’t eaten any of this stuff since he’d left university and stopped going to the Pan-Asian restaurant down its street. He’d go for half his classes but spent more time making the rounds in various spots across the city that taught self-defense and martial arts. Between boxing, judo and karate, and happening upon a former Shaolin monk who taught Tibetan kung fu, he had spent his late teens and early twenties making sure no one would ever get the jump on him again.
He should put Dick in at least one of these classes, if not try training him himself.
“Ha! I got it!” Clark raised his chopsticks triumphantly, holding a piece of salmon nigiri. “Not as hard as I thought it’d be.”
“If toddlers can eat rice like this then it shouldn’t have been too hard for you to manage.”
Clark shook his head at him as he carefully dipped his piece in his soy sauce fish-side down. “We really need to work on your tone, because half the time I can’t tell if you’re joking or being mean.”
Bruce paused chewing his tuna roll. “I wasn’t doing either, I was just stating a fact.”
Chewing, Clark snorted dismissively. “You could do with a little finesse in that case.”
“How?”
Clark picked up a shrimp piece and popped it whole in his mouth, not even spitting out the tail, crunching it indiscriminately. “By learning how to say things in a way that doesn’t put people off you.”
“What’s the point? People are put off by me when I don’t even open my mouth.”
Which definitely helped with the Bat’s unsettling presence and fearful aura.
“Mmm, not as much as you’d think,” Clark said. “You can quickly change their minds once you do open your mouth, make it a memorable part of meeting you.”
“Did you not find me memorable when we met?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Would we be sitting here if I didn’t?” Clark teased, wagging his brows.
Bruce felt the urge to avert his eyes all of the sudden, but he resisted it. “So, if I didn’t put you off, why bother making an effort for anyone else?”
“I’m not anyone else,” he pointed out. “I give people the benefit of the doubt and I’m patient, which I’ve noticed are not common traits in big cities.”
“You’re not wrong,” Bruce mumbled. “I know why it’s necessary for work or events where the guests donate, but why do I need to sweet-talk someone who already knows what I’m like?”
“So they can know you care about their feelings?” Clark suggested. “It’s also good practice for when you meet new people. You don’t want to ruin things before they start, with new friends, with the parents of Dick’s friends, which anyone you want to date.”
“I sincerely doubt I’m going to date anyone,” he said. “Outside of the bank account and prestige, I don’t have much to recommend me.”
Clark chewed slowly, watching him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You own a mirror, right?”
“Several. Why?”
“If you consider me conventionally attractive then what are you?”
Objectively, Bruce knew he was good-looking, Dick’s prospective teacher, Daphne, had reminded him of that. But he knew his presence and personality soured anyone struck by his mother’s features.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to hear a compliment from someone he liked talking to.
“You tell me,” he dared him, finishing his tuna roll.
Too busy dipping his octopus in the soy sauce, Clark passively said, “You’re a very handsome man, millions online can attest to that.”
A stupid, petty part of him thought of the pictures he’d seen of Clark’s exes, and how comparable they’d been to Lex, and, from some angles, Lois Lane. They all had the same bone structure, eye shape, type of build, kind of smile, and most importantly, clear, unblemished skin—
He wanted to ask what he’d found attractive about Lex, as a man, and how it had overpowered his common sense so badly.
Instead, he echoed Clark’s jab from earlier. “I didn’t think I was your type.”
Clark met his eyes and smirked. “You look like a male version of Sky Ferreira, who I did have a thing for, so, you kind of are.”
Bruce felt an oddly pleasant warmth spread across his face, soothing the tenseness of his jaw and brow muscles. “I don’t know who that is.”
“She’s a singer I was really into back in school,” Clark said breezily, like he hadn’t just told Bruce that he liked his face. “You might like her music.”
“I’ll check her out,” he said.
Clark shook his head, eating his next piece in one bite. “Sure you will.”
“I will! Here!” Bruce handed him his phone after using his thumbprint to unlock it. “Add music you think I’ll like.”
“Have to first see if I guessed what you’re into right,” Clark said, tapping through his apps until he reached Spotify. Bruce watched him as he scrolled through his recent plays, humming interestedly. “Yeah, this is more or less what I figure you’d be into.”
Bruce prickled at that, remembering how Kate and Beth had mocked him for wanting to go concerts as postponed birthday gifts, namely cracking jokes about his ‘emo’ taste in music.
He didn’t understand how that term had gotten pinned on the angsty and dramatic variety of rock that had soundtracked his childhood and young adulthood. As fas he’d understood emo as a genre sounded quite different. He didn’t get why he couldn’t call Beth’s taste in music dull and unremarkable—which it was—but his continued love for certain acts was ‘cringe’.
Then there were, of course, the other boys at school, who called his favorite artists a variety of insults that would get them a wave of bad press today, but were par for the course when they were kids. It had never been a general opinion too, or an expression of varying taste, it had always been personal, as if he’d committed some sort of social grievance by listening to men who wore eyeliner and dyed their hair.
“Sorry I’m predictable,” he said, a little bitter.
Clark kept his face angled down towards the phone but his eyes met his. “I’m not making fun of you, I like a lot of this stuff too.”
“It just sounded like…” Bruce trailed off. “Forget it.”
Clark groaned frustratedly. “Don’t do that. Everyone does that. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“What’s the point? It’s stupid.”
“Not if it’s bothering you,” Clark said frustratedly. “And I can tell it is, and that kind of stuff going unaddressed just makes things tense and awkward and resentful! It throws off whatever comfort was there and it festers and just ruins what was there in the first place and then—” He stopped just as his volume had risen in the tranquil, dimly-lit restaurant. He seemed to realize how oddly specific he’d gotten, straightening up abruptly and pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Y’know what, ignore me. I’m sorry.”
This little outburst was too interesting for him to ignore.
“Seems like something is bothering you too,” Bruce remarked, turning in his seat to lean against the table and properly watch Clark. “For the record, I just thought you were saying I was boring and predictable or even laughable.”
“You know you’re not,” Clark said sincerely. “I can’t remember if I’ve met anyone like you before, and I barely know you.”
“Same here,” Bruce said, mouth quirked. “People used to make fun of the music I was into, and I always took it personally because I feel that certain songs, even whole albums kept me from falling apart or losing my mind for entire chunks of my life.”
He sighed. “I feel you there, and I didn’t even get to dress or do my hair like the guys who tended to like what I did. Which, looking back, was a good thing because God, the really tight jeans with the studded belts, bracelets and chokers, and the flat-ironed helmet hair was a bad look.”
The visual humored Bruce, making his chest bob with soft, airy chuckles. “I can’t imagine you with straight hair, or tight clothes.”
“I can imagine you with all monochrome though, with really smudgy eyeliner and long coat or leather duster,” Clark said. “The whole modern vampire look would suit you.”
That was uncomfortably close to how he’d look as the Batman. “Think that’s what I should be if I take Dick to a Halloween party? There’s always a bunch of big parties hosted in Gotham every year, but I never go.”
“If you do, take pictures for me.”
October was still four months away, and he didn’t know where his investigations would be then, or how Dick would be faring as a schoolboy, but he hoped whatever this was he was establishing with Clark hadn’t been fucked up by then.
“You could come with us,” he said, pulse pounding his lower gut for some reason.
“I don’t think I can show up uninvited to any of the parties you’re invited to,” Clark said dismissively.
“You can if you’re with me.”
As he took a sip of his sake, Clark’s eyes widened slightly. “No one is going to find it a weird that a reporter is following you and your kid around?”
“Why would they? We’ll all be in costumes, and people bring dates all the time.”
Clark swallowed his drink loudly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, it’s a date.”
Remembering how he’d reacted after their interview, Bruce smacked down the dumb, pointless urge to assure Clark that it would just be them there as friends. But Clark had just had an actual date go sideways yesterday and he didn’t want to set him off again.
When their plates were removed and dessert was left up to their waitress, Clark leaned in on his crossed arms to ask, “So, what albums did you base your personality off of?”
“Can’t you guess? I thought you could read me.”
Clark rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “I can, but where’s the fun in that? I want you tell me, not make me think it through. I already do enough of that at work.”
“You think asking about stuff you already know is fun?”
“That’s how you make conversation a lot of the time, by asking about stuff you know about someone.” He shrugged his shoulders, unbothered, unburdened. “In this case, I don’t know for a fact, I can just estimate, which still leaves me curious for the actual answer. Even if I do know that, I don’t know, OK Computer or Dark Side of the Moon blew your little twelve year-old mind, I still want to hear why and how.”
“Why though?” Bruce asked. “I’m not being cagey, I just want to get it.”
“Because it helps me get to know you and hear your perspective on stuff?” Clark gave him a conspiratorial smile. “I told you, I’m very nosy.”
“So am I,” he mumbled under his breath, only to speak clearly after, “You start.”
Clark made a startled noise. “I asked you first.”
“Yes, but—”
“You’re not wiggling your way out of this, just tell me, I won’t laugh or think different of you.” Clark raised his hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“Of course you were a Boy Scout,” Bruce grumbled fondly, shifting in his seat to mirror Clark. “All right, the first album to blow my mind was My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.”
Clark raised his brows, grinning with disbelief. “Not Black Parade?”
“That too, but Revenge was the first time I had heard music like that and it just…”
Description too far to grasp, he gestured near his head, fingers wiggling rapidly.
“Rewired your brain?” Clark suggested amusedly.
“You could say that,” he laughed softly. “I found interviews from the band talking about their inspirations and worked my way through all the older stuff and discovered Nirvana, and AFI, and Deftones.”
“I bet you were obsessed with Kurt Cobain for like half your teens,” Clark said fondly.
Bruce felt a little embarrassed for being clocked on that. “Maybe.”
“You absolutely were,” Clark decided, readjusting his arms so one stretched across the space between them and the other propped up his face as he watched him with invested consideration. “What was your favorite Nirvana song?”
“Something In The Way. I listen to it when I need to clear my head. The whole album, really.” Bruce poured more sake into both their cups just to have something to do with his hands and immediately drank his. “Your turn. What rewired your child brain?”
“Fall Out Boy’s Infinity On High,” Clark said, his humored expression shrinking into bashfulness, as if he were remembering something embarrassing. Or inadvisable. “My best friend Pete, his brother was really into them and he’d lend me albums, and then burnt me a CD with this curated playlist full of similar bands—My Chemical Romance included—and I felt like he enlightened me, y’know?”
“Just in music, or in other things?”
A mild disturbance seemed to have snuck up on him, making Clark suddenly look like he was guilty of something. “I wasn’t—it wasn’t like that. I was twelve, he was seventeen. He certainly wouldn’t have considered it.”
“Even if you did?”
Clark used the hand holding up his face to covered his eyes. “Puberty was a very scary and confusing time for me already, the last thing I needed was to have the same feelings for Paul that I had for Lana.”
Bruce knew who Lana Lang was, but Clark didn’t need to know that. “Was she your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, but not for long,” Clark said. “I’d liked her for ages though.”
“Is she who you were thinking of earlier, when you said stuff that bothered me would fester?”
Still shielding his eyes, he shook his head. “No. My breakup with Lana was about us going to university on opposite ends of the country, which, y’know, sucked, but had to happen.”
“So, you were thinking of who had come after her?”
“Mhm,” Clark hummed. “Lori. We were together for most of my time at university.”
The girl with the curly dark-red hair in most of his pictures at Met U.
“What happened?”
Exhaling through his nose, Clark dropped his hand, still avoiding looking at Bruce. “I think I loved her far more than she was willing to love me. I had been planning out our future and she had never even considered it, and we had a few fights about it, about her not telling me where she really thought this relationship was going, or what she really thought about me.”
“How did you find out?”
A pained look pulled at the edges of his face. “I asked her to marry me. She freaked out and told me it wasn’t an option, not even in a few years, because she had decided that was going home the second she graduated.”
“Jesus,” Bruce breathed. “How old were you, twenty?”
“Twenty-one, yeah,” Clark huffed. “She used to talk about staying here, so I thought, hey, we can build our lives together in Metropolis, move in together, figure our futures out, get married, and, in a few years, adopt, and the whole time it had never been that serious for her.”
Bruce felt his gut twist with sympathy, and it reiterated his earlier statement that he would remain single. Getting involved with someone else was too emotionally risky for most, then how would it be for someone like him?
“That must have hurt.”
“Yeah, I made good use of all my bitter Fall Out Boy songs during that time,” Clark joked feebly. “She got married recently, so, that sent me on a fun stroll through memory lane.”
“Has there been no one since her?”
Clark shook his head.
“How come?”
Obviously being avoidant, Clark stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
His eyes flit to Bruce’s. “What do you want me to say? That no one I want wants me back?”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, you better believe it,” Clark grumbled. “I have been on a few dates, but they never go anywhere. And the people I felt that I’ve clicked with, they never feel the same. It’s either they just want to be friends or they just want sex. And while I can just be someone's friend, I can’t handle being a friend-with-benefits, which Lex didn’t seem to understand at all.”
Bruce couldn’t resist the grimace that came up at the mention of him. “Not surprising, considering he’s probably never had a real relationship with anyone.”
Not that Bruce had room to judge, considering he still got half-hard from thinking of Selina’s lips against his.
The apparent loneliness, desire for romance and desperation for intimacy could explain Clark giving Lex a chance, why someone with his social intelligence had let himself be flattered and used.
Good thing that was over and done with.
“Do you have any theories on why you haven’t found anyone since Lori?”
“Apart from how much dating and making friends sucks in this day and age?” Clark joked miserably. “It’s just so hard to find someone who is single, into you in some capacity, and able to understand you, and that last part is probably the hardest to find.”
“I’m sure you can find someone in a group for Midwestern transplants in Metropolis, or one for writers.”
“Those aren’t the parts I want to be accepted and understood,” he said. “Lori and I had something very rare in common, and it’s what attracted us to each other, it’s what framed most of our conversations, even if we didn’t talk about that one thing, we still could talk about what it affected in our lives.”
Now Bruce needed to fight off the urge to find Lori Lemaris and investigate her thoroughly, because what could have been so odd and so rare about this man that it had made it so hard for him to attract someone at work? Or someone without ulterior motives?
He couldn’t even begin to guess, because every thought he had went in a negative, if not disturbing direction, because that was what most people were worried about expressing with others, and what would prevent them from finding someone.
What could Clark Kent be struggling with that made him agree to fucking get blown by Lex Luthor at a party?
They’d already discussed things Bruce hadn’t been anticipating today, what could be more invasive and scandalous than being told how exactly Clark had had sex with another man yesterday? He might as well just ask.
“What’s wrong with you?” Bruce blurted out. “You seem to be the ideal man for millions of women around the world, maybe even thousands of men. What is it about you that makes people want to either keep you at a distance or not want to understand you?”
Clark shifted back off the table, sagging against the back of his chair, visibly distressed, mouth half-open and twitching like wanted to say what was on his mind, like the clear answer was there, but he held himself back while he searched for an appropriate lie to share.
Instead, he decided on saying, “I don’t know what you want me to say here.”
“What is it about you that was so odd only Lori could understand you?” Bruce asked. “Either you’re exaggerating because of lingering feelings that romanticize your time with her, or there is something wrong with you, and if there is, statically speaking, you should be able to find someone with the same issue in a big city like Metropolis.”
Clark burst out laughing then quickly clapped his hand on his mouth. A few heads had turned to briefly glance at them before resuming their meals, and Clark lowered his hand, all traces of his outburst gone, now just seeming worn out and sad.
Bruce had fucked up the mood again.
“Maybe you’re right, maybe I am just too hung up on her all these years later. ” Clark said quietly. “I know there has to be someone else out there who gets me, but knowing that isn’t going to help me find them.”
“What would it take to get you?” Bruce asked, palms sweaty all of the sudden.
Clark blinked at him, confused. “Come again?”
Bruce wiped his palms on his legs. “What would someone need to do to get you?”
“I…” Clark trailed off, a distracted fog coming over his gaze. “Be really accepting of odd and stressful stuff, to start.”
“Because of your job?”
“Among other things.”
“What else?”
“Not think of me differently once they really get to know me, I guess,” Clark said, drumming his fingers on his thighs. “And not get turned off by how I am, and how I can get.”
Bruce understood all those concerns on a visceral level.
“And the turn-offs here are…?”
“I can get real insecure and clingy, and a little cagey on certain things until I really feel I can trust you,” Clark stated flatly. “It’s kind of why I haven’t made a real concentrated effort to date just anyone, because I feel like if we don’t have some kind of solid understanding about what we’re like, and are ready to accept that, things are going go south fast.”
“So, ideally, you want to be with a friend?”
“Yep,” Clark said. “Lana and I were childhood friends, Lori and I had become friends through extracurriculars, and I know Lois is not even going to consider it, and I like being her friend too much to make things awkward, so I’m not going to bother,” he said in a breathless rush, before breathing in and saying, “And the friends I’ve been making who do get me, who do like me, are all already with someone else, because of course they are. Which sucks on a friend-level too, especially if they’re in a different city. It’s hard for them to make time for you.”
“I’ll make time for you,” Bruce said thoughtlessly, too affected by this. “I don’t have a social life, and I feel Dick would benefit from having you around.”
Since their music talk had pivoted to this, Clark had been avoiding his eyes, and now he sought him out, still worn-down, but a vulnerable, open softness rounding his features. “You think so?”
“He likes you. And he needs to regularly see a good example of a normal adult, especially someone who was adopted.”
“You want me to talk to him about that stuff?”
“Yes, and whatever else you feel you can talk to him about.”
“You’d trust me with him that much?”
Rationally, he shouldn’t trust anyone but Alfred, and to a far lesser extent, Kate, and possibly Commissioner Gordon. But as oddly cagey Clark had suddenly started being about his unseen but seemingly-inherent oddness, his character was consistent, he gave no signs of faking his personality, he did not unsettle Bruce in any way, in fact, his presence was soothing.
As uncomfortable as their talks had gotten today, he had enjoyed his time with him. He hadn’t just gotten some of the information he’d needed, he’d gone out of his comfort zone and liked it so far, liked talking to him about anything and everything, and this was just the third time they’d met.
Bruce couldn’t exactly see himself telling Clark about the Bat, not without at least a year of studying him and testing him to see how he’d react, but it was a possibility.
After all, Superman had trusted him.
“I do,” Bruce said. “I trust you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a good man, and I like you.”
The corners of Clark’s mouth wobbled. “Thanks, I like you too.”
Their dessert had arrived by then, a mochi sampler that had greatly amused Clark, who’d commented that Jimmy had told him about this kind of ice cream but he hadn’t believed it would be good.
After paying without letting Clark see the bill, they left the hotel and the drive back to Clark’s apartment took around ninety minutes. The whole ride Clark had taken hold of Bruce’s phone and played him songs he liked, and if Bruce expressed anything positive toward a song Clark would add it to a playlist.
Whenever traffic blocked the road, Bruce would look over and watch as Clark hummed or sang along to whatever they’d been listening to, open, uncaring of any possible secondhand embarrassment or judgment, untethered from any anxiety, and just enjoying the music.
Somewhere in downtown, halfway home according to the GPS, Clark had noticed Bruce watching him, but when he turned his head in his direction, it wasn’t with any earlier discomfort or confusion or irritation, he just grinned at him, dimples deep grooves in his cheeks, eyes a bright, deep blue that seemed to glow in the ambience of the car monitor.
“This is one of my shower songs.” Clark reached over to raise the volume, filling the car with the chorus of Kamikaze by WALK THE MOON. “I know my neighbors are sick of it."
Bruce’s heartbeat sped up suddenly, like it would when a threat had gotten too close, and he couldn’t figure out why.
Twenty-five songs later, they were parked before Clark’s building.
Bruce tapped the button on his steering wheel to silence the dreamy tune of Hozier’s Talk.
Uncertain how to proceed from here and leaving the flow of their goodbye up to Clark, he busied himself with unbuckling his belt. He could hear Clark doing the same.
“So,” Clark began. “How do you rate this experiment?”
Bruce jerked with such sudden, thoughtless force that he slammed his forearm against the steering wheel and pushed the klaxon. “Experiment?”
If Clark had any idea what Bruce had been up to this entire time, he didn’t seem mad about it, just intrigued. “Mhm, that’s what today was about, right? Seeing what it’s like hanging out with someone you barely know?”
Rubbing his throbbing arm, he shook his head. “Yes, but not like you’re thinking.”
“And what am I thinking?”
“That this was impersonal, that I was just using you to figure something out. I wouldn’t do that.” Bruce explained, sincere. “I came here for you, specifically.”
“And did I turn out to be worth leaving your comfort zone?” Clark teased.
“You did. I can’t remember the last time I spent several hours with someone and didn’t feel exhausted by the end of it,” Bruce admitted. “I actually can’t wait to see you again.”
Clark’s brows met in an upwards slant and his mouth fell open in shock.
What did he say? Was he not supposed to say that yet?
“You enjoyed my company that much? Really?”
“I thought it was obvious,” Bruce said confusedly. “I’ve told you that you’re a good man, that I want you to be around my ward, and that I liked talking you.”
“And you like me, you want to be around me regularly?”
“Yes?” Bruce was unsure what the confusing part here was. “I told you, I like you.”
“That much?”
“Yes!”
Clark’s shock broke into open delight, teeth so white in the monitor light that reflected off his glasses. “Okay. You want to hang out next week?”
“Sure. I’m coming back to Metropolis for the LuthorCorp Expo and am thinking of bringing Dick. We could all go somewhere after it’s over.”
“Lois is going to be covering that, so, I’ll be off work early that day. We can take Dick to the park, there’s a great playground there,” Clark said excitedly. “I’ve also been meaning to go see the new Muppets movie, can’t get anyone to go with me.”
“I haven’t taken him to the cinema yet, and I haven’t gone in years, so, we can do that after lunch,” Bruce said, feeling himself grow a little eager and excited. “The week after we can come for Fourth of July and watch the fireworks from that old French hotel.”
“Le Métropole,” Clark offered. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
This could have been exactly what they both needed, and what Dick needed, some semblance of a social life, and the company of someone they wouldn’t have to act or censor themselves too much around.
By Halloween, they could have already become a steadying, therapeutic part of each other’s week.
He supposed he should seal this with some kind of sign of affection, like a hug.
Bruce shifted in his seat and leaned forward, one arm reaching to settle on his back. But Clark gasped softly and lagged in his response time, stuck staring at him in a way that made him start to wonder if he’d overstepped some social boundary.
He was about to withdraw when Clark moved in and pressed his mouth against Bruce’s.
All the fuses in his brain burned in a white-hot surge.
Years of constant background noise humming in his brain had him so used to being aware of his many scattered and overly-invested thoughts, rarely were they simple or surface-level, to the point that he had to indulge in the odd drink or smoke to slow his mind.
But now…now he could barely string two thoughts together. He couldn’t even remain present in the moment and aware of his feelings towards who he had been kissed by as he had with Selina or Harvey. He just sat there, arm limp over Clark’s shoulder, nose against his cheek, lips pressed together softly, an overpowering warmth rising from the spark their contact released and spreading down his body—
Clark pulled back, softly frowning until he looked at Bruce’s face. What he’d seen there had him overcome with horror. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry, I thought you were—I thought we had—I’m so sorry.”
Sense trickled back into Bruce, his reactions delayed and his reason half-restored, leaving him torn between shock and panic.
“Bruce, say something,” Clark said nervously.
“I was going in for a hug,” he said stupidly, no doubt bug-eyed and off-putting.
Clark swallowed audibly. “I see that now. I’m really sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bruce didn’t know what he was thinking either.
“Did I ruin things?”
His instinct was to yell “No!” a little too loudly and grab Clark’s arm before he could grab the door handle. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
Clark chewed on his bottom lip, seeming conflicted. “Look, if you’re going to cut me off after this, I understand, but just rip off the bandage and tell me now.”
“I’m not doing that! I told you I want to see you again!”
“Even after I made things weird?”
“You didn’t care every time I did that,” Bruce told him.
Clark breathed out a heavy sigh, not quite convinced. “You sure you’re not upset?”
“No.” He paused, thought about it and added, “No, I’m not upset.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Bruce gave his arm a comforting squeeze before releasing him. “So, next week?”
“Next week.” Clark stepped out of the car. “Say hi to Dick for me.”
“I will.”
When he had gone into his building, Bruce had pulled himself together enough to make the drive back to Gotham.
Dick was already in bed by the time he’d gotten home and Alfred had retired to his room, where Bruce could hear the TV he tended to leave on as he fell asleep.
After logging a few hours in the cave, typing down everything Clark had shared, and recounting the day’s experience in his journal, up to and including the kiss in the car.
It had felt random and unprovoked, and Bruce’s mind hadn’t quite perceived the suddenness of the act as an attack as he had with Harvey, neither did he initially consider it a ploy for manipulation as he had with Selina the first time she’d done it.
He didn’t quite know what to think of it, he just knew that it had felt different to being kissed by those two. There wasn’t new about it, Clark’s lips were fuller than Harvey’s but not as full as Selina’s, he wasn’t stubbly like Harvey or as forceful, so there truly was nothing that should have stalled his thoughts this way.
Clark had clearly misread some part of their conversation, or the whole dinner even, and thought that Bruce was initiating a kiss when he’d leaned in for the hug. He supposed he couldn’t blame him for being confused, they had talked about some very intimate details today, stirred up Clark’s feelings about his relationships and current lack thereof, and he no doubt felt vulnerable and lonely after Lex.
So, he must have just wanted to kiss someone, anyone. Bruce had just been within reach.
Or he wasn’t. Clark had seemed to flirt with him a few times in the two times they’d been alone.
How he truly felt would be settled after they saw each other again and Bruce got to watch how he behaved.
Done with his work for the night, he retired to his quarters, crashing into his bed at around three in the morning.
He didn’t know what had brought him back here so soon, but he’d felt compelled to come see what his cameras couldn’t. He’d heard something on the mics that had no matching footage, whoever Clark had been talking to must have known of the blindspots.
It must have been Superman.
Bruce climbed up the side of the building and slipped in through Clark’s unlocked living room window. It was dark and quiet, Clark must have been in a deep sleep by now.
He turned on a lamp, not bright enough to make a noticeable glow from the cracks around the bedroom door, but giving him a better view of where he’d placed his tech and to compare the apartment itself to his footage, figure out where the blindspots had been.
It was very difficult for someone to sneak up on him, something Dick tried to manage regularly, as did the idiots who thought they could take on the Bat in a street fight.
That didn’t explain how someone Clark’s size had managed it.
A hand on his shoulder spun him around and his instinct was to go for the throat, using the speed, force and shock to shove him back against the window hard enough to rattle it.
Only when a hand gripped his wrist did it anchor him back to reality. “Bruce!” Clark wheezed.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Bruce withdrew slightly, releasing Clark. “I’m sorry. You scared me.”
Clark stayed leaning against the window, rubbing his throat. “I scared you? You’re the one who broke into my apartment!”
There was no denying that. He needed to think up a good excuse quick.
“Well?” Clark nudged, irritated. “Want to tell me why you’re here at three in the morning?”
“I…” his thoughts stalled, scrambling for a half-decent lie that salvaged what he’d built with him so far.
How did he not think up something before he’d gotten here? What had even brought him here so fast? He could have just waited until tomorrow!
Panic gripped him, not the kind he’d felt racing home to Alfred to spare him from the Riddler’s letter bomb, or when they’d almost unmasked him at the police station. It wasn’t a threatened sort of stress, no worry for his safety or that of anyone else, but it gripped him all the same.
It was closer to the mind-numbing effect Clark’s lips had instilled in him earlier. The strange soothing sensation overpowered by the indecision on how to proceed, and what outcome would arise from which response.
He didn’t want to get marked as crazy and then be cut off by Clark, not just for the potential help with investigations, but the complete loss of his company, and the severing of the admittedly stupid attachment he’d started forming towards this man.
This couldn’t end here, not when a few hours ago Clark had felt compelled to kiss him.
Maybe kissing him again would fix this. It had worked for Lex Luthor, why shouldn’t it work for someone who actually felt some genuine affection towards Clark?
Maybe he’d like it this time.
“Bruce,” Clark straightened up, blocking most of the window, his outline backlit by nighttime ambience of the moon and the street. “Bruce, say something.”
“I had to see you,” he said, voice distant and foreign to his own ears, heartbeat the loudest thing for miles.
“Unannounced? Right before dawn?” Clark asked, exasperated.
“I may not have been thinking clearly,” he stuttered, not quite lying yet. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking of how the night had ended.”
Dimly-lit by the warm glow of the lamp and the window, Clark’s form took on an insecure tilt. “Me neither. I couldn’t stop thinking of how badly I’d screwed up.”
Mouth dry, Bruce licked his lips. “You didn’t. I did.”
“By scaring me in the dead of night?”
“By taking too long to realize that I wanted to kiss you back.”
A sharp intake of breath soundtracked the warring disbelief and delight on Clark’s face. “You did?”
“I did. I do.”
A wobbly, uncertain half-smile didn’t yet reach his eyes. “Y’know, this could’ve been a phone call, or waited until tomorrow.”
“No, it couldn’t.” Bruce shook his head. “I couldn’t wait, or say any of this without seeing your face.”
“You hate talking on the phone that much?”
“Yes,” he said flatly, making Clark laugh softly. “Hearing someone’s voice without seeing their expressions and body language is very frustrating. I’ll always feel like I’m missing something.”
Clark stepped closer, looking down at him with a curious tilt of his head, his dark curls haloed by moonlight, gleaming like blue ink. “And what would you have missed by not coming here now?”
“This,” he breathed, cupping the back of his neck and pulling him down to meet his lips.
Upon contact, a pleasant buzz overtook his lips, and it rose in intensity as the pressure from Clark’s eager mouth shifted in slow, chaste kisses that encouraged Bruce to do the same, responding with the same pace but a more exploratory effort, not quite certain how to reflect his own rising comfort and enjoyment in Clark.
But it seemed he didn’t need to, as Clark’s hands settled on his hips, pulling him even closer until they were pressed together, chest-to-knees, and Bruce threw an arm around Clark’s shoulders to pull him further down, deepening the kiss.
Humming with expressive contentment and pleasure, Clark raised his hands up Bruce’s body in a slow, indulgent slide of his palms until he reached his shoulders and pushed at his coat.
Mindless, obedient, too caught up in how good this felt to care about the specifics of what this meant, he pulled back far enough to shrug off the coat, allowing Clark to swoop in and pull his shirt out of his trousers while he kissed the lines of Bruce’s jaw.
Wet lips and hot breath on his skin, mouth adding risky pressure onto the vulnerable flesh of his throat, all his overthought self-preservation and suspicion was nowhere to be found. Bruce just stood there, gripping handfuls of Clark’s T-shirt and shivering with sudden, extreme overheating, already sweating, afflicted with a sweet fever that had him panting loudly.
Clark stopped mapping his throat with his mouth, speaking against his jugular. “What do you want?”
“What?” he panted, barely audible.
Clark withdrew just enough to watch his face, his face flushed, his lips dark and shining with spit, looking more aroused than he had when Bruce had watched him get sucked off.
Leg between his own, Clark pressed his erection against Bruce’s hip, making him shudder in his grip. “What do you want to do to me right now?”
Head empty save for the surrounding sensation of Clark’s body, hands, breath, Bruce could only think of how he’d looked, how he’d sounded when he was in the throes of pleasure.
He wanted to do that to him, make him red-faced and breathless just from his mouth alone.
Without another word, Bruce sank to his knees and pulled on Clark’s boxers in one impatient go, bringing them to the ends of his thighs and releasing his hard cock.
Like in the security footage, he was big, thick, uncut and flushed. It should have filled him with revulsion at worst and envy at best, but he just felt himself grow hotter under his clothes, and his own erection get painfully hard. There was no time to process what he was doing, or the absurdity of this moment, him kneeling with another man’s cock in his face, because all he could think about was how to fit it in his mouth.
Stuck dumb and acting out what he’d remembered watching, what he knew Clark enjoyed, Bruce took a hold of his cock and stroked it as he ran his tongue over the tip and sides, reveling in the immediate loud reaction he’d gotten.
Clark’s hand settled in his hair and he used the grip to force Bruce’s face further into his crotch, making him take in more in his mouth, filling his mouth, urging him to moan and encouraging his instinct to suck.
Softly thrusting, Clark let out those soft, short, breathy moans that made Bruce start shaking from unmet arousal. He had to touch himself, he had to do something about this before he exploded.
Jerking himself off, he sat there, his muffled noises in a call and response with Clark’s own carelessly loud moans and uneven thrusts, his staggering pace and the heightening intensity of his voice told Bruce he was close.
And so was he.
“Ah! Bruce!” Clark gasped, pulling tightly on his hair, sparking a confusing mix of pain and pleasure. “Don't stop, don't stop! I'm so close! Bruce. Bruce—!”
Bruce jerked awake when his foot touched the floor.
He was lying facedown on the his bed, one leg hanging off the edge, one arm threatening to do the same, and drool pooling out of his open mouth and onto his pillow.
Normally, he forgot most of his dreams the instant he regained full consciousness, but there was no forgetting what had made him so hard he still felt the urge to hump the bed. That was likely what he’d been doing until he’d gotten close.
He needed to finish, because it wasn’t going to go down by itself.
Frustrated, he flipped onto his back, the morning light from the slim cracks in his curtains the only light in the room, but there was no sign of movement on this side of the floor. He wouldn’t be interrupted, or heard.
He should do this in the shower, like he usually did, but his cock throbbed so hard and he already felt lightheaded, as if most of his blood had settled between his legs, leaving him at risk of plummeting to the floor if he stood up.
Swearing, he rolled off his briefs, kicking them off so he could comfortably spread his legs, and spat in his palm, though he didn’t need it, he was already gleaming wet.
Just as he’d started jerking himself off in quick, precise movements, his mind decided to firmly remind him of what had led to this, the kiss in the car, the confession in Clark’s apartment, the intense, passionate making out and the way his cock had filled his mouth—
Most of it hadn’t been real, just a bizarre dream, like all the other strange and unsettling dreams he had that weren’t disturbing or upsetting enough to be called nightmares. Not like what he’d suffered the first few times he’d recovered from Joker Gas.
But this hadn’t felt like them either. Those had left him with barely any recollection of the details, and never made any narrative sense. This had been an in-depth scenario, one that had continued where they’d left off, where Clark had likely wanted it to end up.
At the thought of him, Bruce gasped, feeling himself grow wetter.
There was no reason for him to be this turned on. He hadn’t had this reaction to a dream since he’d still been at the height of hormonal confusion and waking up with ruined underwear or still hard enough to hump his pillow.
Yet here was, thirty years-old and about to come to the unprompted first-person recreation of what he’d watched happen in his father’s office.
This could mean nothing. People had weird sexual dreams all the time, some random and some disturbing, they didn’t need to be a manifestation of his subconscious. This could have all just been nothing.
But he was conscious now, and the effect it had had on him while he was asleep was still going while he was wide awake and desperate to finish.
Legs shaking, breathing open-mouthed and loud enough to touch the edges of moans and whines, Bruce stopped fighting off the thoughts of what had gotten him here: Clark’s hands moving up and down his upper body, his leg pressed between Bruce’s own, his hot breath on his throat, his cock in his mouth—
Gripped by a bolt of pleasure that shot through his middle, Bruce arched off the bed with an oversensitive shout and came all over his fist.
He kept going, panting and bleary-eyed until he had fully emptied himself on his chest and covered his hand.
Flopping back long enough to catch his breath and for his head to stop spinning, Bruce stared at the ceiling.
When he’d cooled down and the stickiness of his hand had gotten too gross, he managed to get up and into the shower, actually waiting for it to grow warm this time so he could wash off the sweat and spunk.
As he washed his head, he thought of how in the dream, Clark had grabbed his hair to hold him still as they kissed and as he’d fucked his mouth. That leap must have come from how he’d grabbed Lex’s head.
Fuck, why did Bruce imagine himself in Lex’s place? Why did he want to be there, not for a similar manipulative purpose, but his own desire? Why had he gotten off to the thought of practically being manhandled by a man bigger than him? That concept alone should have pushed the whole scene into nightmare territory!
Yet, he’d gotten off to it.
And he was far more confused than he was horrified.
Then again, whatever this was about couldn’t be settled until he ran a few experiments. If it wrought consistent results then he’d have his answer, then and he’d know if he should panic or not.
The question was what those experiments would entail? Did he try something similar to that dream with just any interested man, like Harvey, or did he need to perform it on Clark himself?
No, Clark had said what had made him reject Lex was the prospect of being used for casual sex. And there was no way Bruce could even go that far with a stranger in a random instance, neither would he be able to disengage his feelings from the impact of being touched, especially if it was a touch he sought, a touch loaded with honest emotion and affection like Clark's would.
One of them would no doubt develop feelings for the other. Perhaps even both of them.
Having barely dried himself before he’d gotten dressed, his shirt stuck to his skin, the legs of his trousers touched his calves, he walked around rubbing his hair with the towel, weighing his discovery and how to deal with it.
He stopped in front of the hanging mirror and pitched the towel into the laundry basket while watching his reflection. His hair color had faded again, and grey hairs had grown back out of his roots, the majority in his temples, but a noticeable few along his mid-part, shining like wires against his damp, dark, gleaming hair. He needed to dye it again, and perhaps he should go for a dark brown this time.
Clark’s hair looked blue in certain lights.
Just the thought of him directly, not what was related to him, made Bruce’s heartbeat speed up, not to a panicked pace, but an excited speed.
Before he could reopen this topic with Clark, he had to explore this alone first. He had to do some research, experiment on himself, and consider the viability of pursuing more than friendship with someone who could be disturbed by his complete self.
He needed to talk to Kate. He needed to measure the positives and negatives of indulging this odd new aspect of himself, at least if it didn't turn out to be a misfiring of neurons.
He needed to meet Clark as the Bat first and see how cooperative he'd be. Until then, he had to figure himself out and continue fostering this closeness with Clark as Bruce Wayne. Either way, he couldn’t go wrong with that.
Touching his lips, remembering the pressure and heat of Clark’s mouth against his own, he could still feel them tingling with borrowed warmth.
Notes:
Bruce took an Am I Gay? quiz after this and then looked up some Gray Ghost yaoi fanfic 😩
Chapter 4
Notes:
I come bearing yet another 20K update
Don't blame me, blame the Bat for this slow burn, and blame life and work for getting in the way
If I don't update until the end of the month I will now wish you a Merry Christmas, and if I post the next chapter after that, then I wish you a Happy New Year as well ❤️
Something something here's the fic's Writing Playlist!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He really tried to be mature and normal about this, but he couldn’t help himself.
Since that outing, since that kiss, since that dream, he had jerked off almost daily, which was more than he’d done in the last ten or twelve years.
Before it was something he did to relieve frustration or to help him clear his head, a necessary physical act like sleeping or eating. All were things he could go days without.
Now he couldn’t end a night without masturbating to his vivid recollections of that dream. Sometimes he stuck his fingers on his mouth, not to muffle the noise, but to help stimulate the fantasy.
He hadn’t done that much in the way of research yet. He’d been too busy juggling his open cases on Poison Ivy and Superman, who had made minor appearances this week. Superman had flown down to Honduras to help spare people from being crushed by an earthquake’s structural damage, gathering them onto buses and flying them to safety. Ivy had reportedly forced a mobster to hand over ownership of the building he did a lot of his deals in. She was no doubt making her strange gas in some makeshift lab in its bottoms floors. He just needed to figure out which building it was and go investigate.
He might even pass that information onto Clark and see what his particular brand of ‘nosiness’ could unearth with him.
If only he could just outright tell him who he was and what he did.
He hadn’t spoken much to Clark since he’d driven him home. They’d traded a few texts, settling the details of what they’d do after the LuthorCorp Expo, which he and Dick were heading over to after they’d finished his school uniform fitting. Apart from that, it seemed like neither of them were willing to break the ice until they could do it in person.
Keeping busy had miraculously kept him from overthinking his response. He managed the experiment of get off thinking this specific man for several nights a row and gotten the same result every time. That left him with the clear answer that he didn’t just find Clark Kent attractive in the general sense, but that he actively desired him.
To what extent? That had yet to be determined.
Bruce didn’t know how he was going to look him in the eye. Hopefully Dick’s presence would provide a buffer and help keep his thoughts in check.
As they reached halfway across the bridge, Bruce glanced over to the passenger seat, where Dick was, for once, not playing with his phone and looking out the window.
“You like the bridge?” he asked, just to break the silence.
Dick faced him, frowning slightly. “Huh?”
“The bridge. Is it’s architecture what you find so interesting?”
“Oh. No.” Dick then looked out his door window. “But I do wonder how they build this stuff.”
“When I was your age I couldn’t grasp how bridges and ships were built and how they ended up in the water, so I figured they were made and put there by giants.”
Dick giggled softly. “Are giants real?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but weird things keep popping up every day,” he said, thinking of this morning’s issue of the Gotham Gazette, which had declared that an Amazon had shown up in Washington, D.C. to spare it from the damage of a giant magical bull.
Dick had gaped at the picture of an armored woman stopping the bull by its horns and then nagged Alfred to mirror footage of the instance on the TV. The second he’d watched the impact of the Amazon stopping the bull in its tracks with her bare hands he had scandalized Alfred by yelling “Holy shit!”
In Bruce’s defense, he did not learn it from him, because he did not use that particular phrase.
Though, the day Dick said ‘fuck’ could be blamed on him fair and square. He really had tried to watch himself at the very beginning, but he’d given up after watching Dick call Tony Zucco ‘an evil son of a bitch’ as he’d bludgeoned him.
“Do you think Clark can find the Amazon?” Dick asked. “I have so many questions for him to ask her.”
“I don’t know if that’s on his list of work-priorities right now, but you can ask him to pass it on to Superman.”
At the mention of him, Dick went back to looking from the windows with rapt, eager attention.
Ah. He’d been hoping for a glimpse of the alien flying overhead.
“Does he really see Superman that often?”
“That’s what I suspect, because why else would he have felt comfortable enough to talk to him when he flees the news at every scene he shows up to and doesn’t let civilians take close pictures of him,” Bruce reasoned. “There’s also the unlocked windows.”
“What about them?”
“It’s like he’s left them open on purpose,” he said. “Clark may be from a small town where nothing ever happens, but he’s been in a big city since his late teens, he knows better.”
Dick groaned, bouncing with frustration in his seat. “Can’t you just ask him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will make me look very weird if I asked him if he keeps his windows unlocked so an alien can stop by for chats. It’s a suspicious leap for someone like me to make.”
Dick snorted.
“What?”
“I think he already knows you’re weird.”
“Yes, but not that weird.”
“You still try to ask,” Dick said. “Or I can, so it’s not suspicious.”
“…Questions about Superman would be more acceptable from you, now that I think of it.” Bruce slowed the car as they finished crossing the bridge and entered Metropolis traffic. “If you ask a lot of invasive questions, he won’t think anything of it. You’re just an excited kid who doesn’t understand that his information might be limited.”
Dick hummed in agreement. “Tell me what you want to know exactly and I’ll figure out how to ask without making it weird.”
“That would be very helpful, but you don’t need to pitch in on my cases if you don’t want to.”
“I want to!” Dick objected loudly. “I want to help the Bat solve mysteries.”
“This isn’t Scooby-Doo, Dick, this stuff could get far more dangerous than what you saw when we went after Zucco.”
“I know, I read the news with you every morning,” he said annoyedly, no doubt rolling his eyes. “But I can still help like I did with Zucco.”
“I needed your help with Zucco because the case involved you and information only you could give me,” he said tiredly. This must have been the fifth retreat of this conversation, only in the car Dick couldn’t storm off and avoid him for hours. “But, if you want to do research, put together some clues and lure answers out of unsuspecting adults, that’s fine.”
“That’s it? What if I want to join you on patrol?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“Just to watch! Just to see what you can’t when you’re fighting!”
“It’s too risky.”
The distressed sound of the leather seat told him Dick was wiggling frustratedly in his spot. “I can handle myself, and I can run really fast! You saw with Zucco’s men.”
He had, in fact, seen Dick get the jump on several armed men and knock a few of them out by moving in ways they couldn’t anticipate, and acting faster than they could react.
“I did.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you’re a child who’s under my care, and I can’t keep taking you with me into dangerous places where you could get hurt or worse. It’s irresponsible, if not insane.”
“Bruce, there—there are aliens, Amazons, speedsters, magicians and people with wings, and some of them have sidekicks! Why can’t Batman?”
“Because you’re human!” Bruce snapped. “We’re both human! The Flash’s sidekick has his powers, Aquaman and his helper are both practically Deep Ones, and before you mention her, Hawkgirl is at least old enough to drive!”
“So, I have to wait til I can drive to help you?”
“I said you could help with the mental efforts in a case, but not outside of the cave.”
“But—”
Already drained from the back-and-forth and repetition, he settled for echoing what his company’s higher-ups tended to end aimless topics with. “Let’s see how this one goes first, then we can revisit this at a later date.”
Dick petulantly crossed his arm and slumped back against his seat, where he remained pouting until they reached the events center the expo was being held at.
Since it was almost July and Dick was in a sour mood, Bruce forwent Alfred’s schedule for Dick’s nourishment to get him a blue raspberry popsicle from a street vendor. That cheered him to some extent.
Once in, he began being recognized and having various attendees stop by for chats, and no doubt to get a good look at the child he’d bizarrely decided to take in.
When the attention had gotten overwhelming, Bruce took Dick’s hand and led him further back to the conference rooms, where they began their trial investigation by peering through each room to see if they could find Lex.
As they went around in a circle, avoiding anyone who wanted to chat, Dick had warmed back enough to start babbling about what he thought they should ask Clark when they met him later. Distracted, Bruce just hummed his responses, the beginning of a migraine pounding in the right side of his head and sending pressure down to his eyes. This always happened when he spent days indoors and then went out into the daylight.
On their second round of the place, he noticed something odd. A lone woman covered head to toe, wearing a green trench coat with the collar popped up, a matching wide-brimmed hat and enormous sunglasses. There was no visible part of her, not even her hands or even her nose.
It was funny, how sometimes going out of your way to avoid being noticed ended up dragging more attention to. But he supposed it didn’t matter when the goal was just to avoid anyone remembering your face or for any recognition software to commit your face to its memory.
Dick noticed her too, gripping his hand tighter. “What do you think she’s up to?”
Bruce watched her stroll through the opposite of the room, doing what they had just been doing, peering through the doors in search of someone. “She might be here for the same person we are,” he mumbled out the side of his mouth.
“Isn’t everyone today here for Luthor?”
“Yes, but not like us, not like her,” he said, eyeing her coat, searching for any odd shapes underneath it that could be signs of firearms or bombs. “We need to keep an eye on her.”
When everyone else started gathering into three of the conference rooms, each displaying some development or product, Bruce and the woman both had the same idea about the biggest room and they followed her in, sitting a few rows back, right in the middle, but just by the aisle.
The man of the hour himself, Lex Luthor, emerged as the audience and settled and the crew recording this event gave them the signal to applaud.
In a perfectly tailored suit that made him appear taller as well as highlighting the width of his shoulders, Lex strutted to the front of the stage, his big grin blindingly white under the lights, and his voice blasting out the speakers.
As he gave his rehearsed welcome speech and hollow gratitude about them showing up, Bruce watched the woman, who had gotten surprisingly comfortable in the dimness of the audience, hands linked over her crossed legs, and her glasses off. He could make out her profile, but not much else in this lighting.
Lex was now talking about his team’s advancements in nanotech and how it could be linked to a chip implanted in a subject’s brain—horrifying enough to make Bruce want to pay LuthorCorp labs a visit in the dead of night and cause enough damage to prolong this outcome.
As Lex talked and talked with breathless ease, never stopping to think or rephrase or search for a word that escaped him, all practiced and polished but delivered with an effortless air that made Bruce feel even more resentful of him.
He shouldn’t be making this personal. He was here to scope out if anything LuthorCorp had on hand could harm Superman, or other meta heroes for that matter. He certainly wasn’t here to linger over whatever he had managed to get from Clark’s words and reactions.
When Lex had paused to sip from his water, Dick tugged on Bruce’s sleeve and pointed forwards. “She’s moving!”
The conspicuously disguised woman had stood up, getting Lex’s attention. “Do you have a question for me, Miss…?”
When she removed her hat and scarf, Bruce’s insides grew sickeningly cold.
Even in the dimmed interior and the blue-tinted glare of the stage screen, Bruce could see that she was green.
“Doctor,” she corrected. “Doctor Pamela Isley, and yes, I have a few questions for you, namely why is it you people brand yourselves as being for the health and safety of the environment when you are what’s harming it?”
Tense with shock, Lex still managed to keep his professional grin in place. “I’m sorry?”
“You and your companies ravage the planet until it is uninhabitable, you try to sell us the cure when you are the disease,” she hissed accusingly. “The world will catch her breath once more, not from your mad creations, but when you all die!”
The ground rumbled beneath them and when she raised her arms the earth broke open with a thundering crack, unfurling giant twisting roots and vines, the attendees’ screams nearly swallowed by the chaos that had suddenly enveloped them.
After all his searching for concrete proof of her existence, Poison Ivy had finally given him some herself, and that was likely because she didn’t expect to leave any survivors.
He had to get Dick out of here!
Gripping his hand, Bruce hauled Dick after him they joined the fleeing audience, already trying to think of a way to capitalize on this opportunity. It would be extreme difficult to manage because:
One, he was in his civilian identity and therefore, unarmed.
Two, he had to keep Dick safe before he saved anyone else.
Three, he had never dealt with a meta before and didn’t know where to start.
Before he could finish one half-assed plan to deal with her—somehow setting the room on fire—a gigantic vine burst out of the floor, scattering the breakage in a rain of splinters and wooden shards, and twisting its way up to tower over everyone that dared run around it.
It was hard to remain focused in a moment like this, where he was practically witnessing magic for the first time, struck dumb as he gaped up at the giant, flexible, green tendril that snapped its end at them like a giant sentient whip.
When one man tried to run across it, it smacked him right across the chest and sent him flying through a row of seats with a force that made Bruce’s back ache.
“I think we need to run the other way now,” Dick said as they carefully backed away.
Bruce glanced around for another exit. “That’s what she wants, to keep us trapped in here.”
“Why? She’s here for Luthor?”
With no way to tell how this vine perceived the people around it, if it could sense them and act on its own, or if was just an extension of Ivy herself, like a hair or a finger, Bruce kept them at the same slow pace, edging away while everyone ran. “And as people who have come to see him, in her eyes that means we have thrown in our lot with him and should now be subject to the same fate.”
“Why? That’s not fair!”
“Criminals are never fair.”
The vine had swung down to the left to block a bunch of people from fleeing past it, hitting them so hard they went in different directions. Having anticipated this move, Bruce had waited until it had twisted in their direction to haul Dick towards the exit.
It seemed he had been too optimistic about this risk.
Another vine, much slimmer than the first, whipped out of the hole in the floor and struck him head-on, the impact landing with a burn and its force knocking him back and out for a second, but that had been long enough to weaken his control, leaving him slow and heavy as the vine wrapped around his middle and yanked him off the floor.
Dick’s hand slipped from his, amplifying his panic as he was raised up high, back brushing the ceiling.
Dizzy and disoriented, he struggled to process the view beneath him, the unsteadiness of the limb that dangled him meters above the ground was not helping.
He couldn’t spot Dick, which gave him hope that he had fled the room for the safety outside. He had enough of a vantage point to find that Lex had managed to escape Ivy and head behind the stage screen.
She had done away with the disguise now, clear in the daylight coming through the open doors, and while he couldn’t see key details from the distance he was dangling from, he saw enough for fascination to overcome fear.
Barefoot, in a dress covered in leaves, Poison Ivy’s hair was hibiscus-red and her skin was bright green. Not green like an alien, or like the constructs of a Lantern’s ring, but like a sprout, a clover, a gooseberry. He desperately needed to see her up close, to see if she was of the same material as her vines or even the roots.
His theories about what she could be—a faerie creature, a dryad, a forest’s genius loci—scattered when he heard his name from not too far below him. “Bruce!”
To his horror, Dick hadn’t escaped, he was climbing up the side of the vine.
“What are you doing?” he yelled down at him. “Get out of here! Run!”
“No! Not without you!”
The vine started moving, likely protesting to being climbed, but Dick didn’t even slip back down a few feet. Unfazed to the attempts to buck him off, he continued climbing up the vine like it was an exercise during P.E.
“Dick! Stop! You need to get off this thing before another one comes at you!” he yelled, struggling to remained focused despite the waves of nausea, the way he unsteadily hung in the air made his breakfast threaten to spray from his mouth.
“I think I can make it let go!” Dick yelled up, halfway up the vine, too high off the ground to land safely if it threw him off. “You have to grab on and slide down when it lets go?”
Panicking and on the verge of vomiting, he could barely focus on the boy himself. “What are you talking about?”
Dick paused his climb, sparing one arm to reach into his pocket. “Just grab on so you don’t fall, okay?”
“What?”
“Turn in its grip! Grab onto it!”
Not having the mind to object, he did his best to twist in his hold and turn until he faced the vine, but he’d only gotten his arms around it when it suddenly loosened, rapidly unraveling from around him and his weak grip.
Time slowed as he felt his unsupported weight hit the air and plummeted, too fast to grab back onto what had been within reach, no claw-tipped gloves, no grappling guns, no parasailing cape, not even a knife to anchor him to what had brought him up this high.
All he could think of as he fell was that he might land the same way the Graysons had, right in front of their son again.
Growing heavier and heavier as he headed towards his trajectory, ready for the crunch of breaking bones and the burning flare of pain, Bruce closed his eyes and willed himself to go limp, just to lessen the damage from the landing.
But it never came.
Something caught him and flew him back up. “Gotcha!”
Bruce latched onto his savior before he’d even registered what it was and found himself bear-hugging the very solid form of another man and watching from over his shoulder as Dick slid down the side of the flailing vine like he were skateboarding down a ramp.
Once he’d safely reached the floor, Dick still didn’t leave, he just stared up at them with his arms raised, as if triumphant. “You’re here!”
That was when Bruce had disengaged from his ward and actually focused on what held him in its arms.
He registered the red cape first and was overcome with excitement.
Bruce immediately pulled back to face his savior, a hundred thoughts warring for the chance to make it to the front of his mind and then out his mouth. Yet, the only one that made its leap off his tongue was a stunned “It’s you.”
Superman smiled at him, eyes crinkling fondly, as if this was a regular yet endearing occurrence, and Bruce didn’t doubt most of those he saved were rendered stupid by his presence, by the feeling of flying in his arms. “It’s me.”
He should be alarmed by this predicament, he was helpless in the hold of something scarier than Ivy’s vines, something that could snap his spine with a tighter grip. But Bruce’s stress from the situation had lessened dramatically, leaving his curiosity and excitement about this encounter to overpower his fear.
Confident in the arms under his, Bruce pulled back slightly, hands on Superman’s shoulders, allowing him to get a better look at him, searching for any apparent inhuman traits, any sign of this being a glamor or a disguise. He hadn’t actually taken in the individual features or considered his face as a whole, too busy trying to find pores in his skin, or figure out if his eyes were, in fact, glowing.
“You feeling okay, Mr. Wayne?” Superman asked with apparent concern. “Got any bruises or breakage you want checked?”
“I didn’t know superheroes provided first-aid now,” Bruce said stupidly.
It must have come off as a joke, earning him a surprised laugh. “Some of us should, to be honest. But no, I can’t, but there are ambulances outside, I can take you if you can’t walk that far by yourself.”
His voice was very deep, but with a pleasant timbre rather than the unsettling tone he typically heard from men pitching themselves down as an attempt to intimidate him. Apart from that, Superman’s accent wasn’t quite discernible, no clear giveaways to a region within the country or outside it, not a hint of whatever his first language was.
“I can’t,” he lied. “Can you carry me?”
“I can, but how about I put you outside and you wait until I deal with the Wrath of Gaia over there?”
Poison Ivy had gotten a hold of Lex and was chastising him while he seemed to be trying to reason with her, likely used to bribing the rogues here, possibly employing a few of them himself, if he had been behind some of those that targeted Superman.
But for now, Superman had to save him, and by extension everyone else, so Bruce’s file on the alien could wait to be updated.
Bruce did feel like his midsection was bruised, but he was used to those, he could run in this condition, but no one else knew that. He wanted to pretend that he was in crippling agony, just to prolong Superman’s attention and proximity, just so he could examine him, ask him a few questions, anything!
“You promise you’ll come back for me?”
“I’ll try my best,” he said softly. “Ready?”
“For—what!” Bruce yelped as they flew past the two giant vines to place him in the hallway. As he withdrew, Bruce latched back onto him. “Wait! My ward! He’s still inside!”
Superman’s brows rose. “Be right back.”
He blurred from his sight, startling Bruce into swearing loudly.
Super tore through the limbs blocking the doorway, breaking the slimmer one but only knocking the gigantic one side. Within a few seconds, he was back with Dick held to his side and cackling excitedly.
“Whoa! That was so fast!” Dick gasped in awe, huge eyes fixed on Superman, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The only comparable moment to this was when he’d snuck into the cave and caught Bruce after patrol, but he hadn’t been excited about meeting the Bat, just relieved that Bruce hadn’t turned out to be hiding a morbid secret.
“If you’re that fast then what’s the Flash?” Dick asked him, enraptured and energetic, like he hadn’t just had his first brush with the paranormal and wasn’t currently held by a literal alien.
“The fastest man alive,” Superman said plainly, but smiling good-naturedly. “He had me winded after our race, that’s for sure.”
“Have you competed with other heroes? Have you met them all? Who’s your favorite? Do you know the Amazon? Do you think this means Greek gods real? Could you beat Hercules in a fight?” Dick rambled excitedly, greatly amusing Superman.
He answered the questions in order. “No, no, I don’t know, no, possibly, and probably?”
“Can you beat the green meta inside?”
“How about you sit tight and let me find out?”
How he spoke was a conscious effort, everything from his tone to his pitch to his cadence was made to soothe whoever he was speaking to, and Bruce was ashamed to admit that it was working. He also now recognized what had slipped his recognition the first time, that Superman spoke English with a Transatlantic accent and in the same manner as an Old Hollywood actor.
He must have been mimicking something he heard a lot. Had he been here since the beginning of the last century? Was that when he’d truly arrived on Earth? If so, what had taken him so long to act as a superhero? The concept would have existed for around two-hundred years at that point.
His interview with Clark had claimed that he’d recently arrived on Earth, so, unless his kind could quickly mimic humans down to linguistic quirks through some unnerving kind of telepathy, he had to have been here longer than that. Possibly for years, even decades.
If the story he’d told about his planet was even remotely true, then it had been destroyed ages ago, and he’d been living among humans ever since. But where was he living? He flew and ran fast enough to arrive here from anywhere within good time, and it would have been stupid if he lived here, because he would have had his location blasted to every corner of the internet and invited emboldened rogues or even the government to know his door down—
He had to have a hideout somewhere they wouldn’t think to look. Did he live in a spaceship docked and cloaked somewhere in orbit? Did he have a base on the moon? Would Clark know?
As Bruce tried to fight off viewing Superman as an ancient extraterrestrial shapeshifter like the entity from The Thing, the man himself set Dick down and flew back in.
Dick didn’t waste a second, running to the other entrance to peek through one of its doors. “Bruce! Oh my God, Bruce!” Dick waved him over excitedly. “They know each other!”
He caught up with him, looking back into the room. “Who?”
“Luthor and the meta!”
Bruce watched Superman finish herding people out through the other doors and then slowly fly towards Ivy, who yelled up at Lex as he dangled a few feet above her.
“Pam,” Lex gasped. “Pam, it’s me, it’s Lex, we were friends, remember?”
“I don’t remember you, and even if I did, I don’t make friends with polluters,” she growled furiously.
“Pam, wait! I can help! I can—” the vine tightened around him, cutting him off.
“You want to help? You can start by dying,” she said with manic delight.
“Y’know, you really need to work on your one-liners,” Superman cut in, loud yet casual. “They’re just not that punchy.”
Poison Ivy spun around, smaller, tendril-like prehensile vines ready to attack but Superman shot towards her, snatching her off the ground by the front of her leaf-dress.
In her distraction, the vine holding Lex loosened, but not enough for him to wiggle free.
Hovering in midair, Superman held Ivy’s face up to his. “Now, I know you’re Batman’s problem, but he’s not here right now, so I’ll ask you just this once to pack up your flytraps and your corpseflowers and leave.”
“I don’t take orders from men, or things that look like them,” she growled, pulling at his unyielding arm. “Unhand me.”
“I will, the second you call off the attack.”
Ivy decided to spite him instead, clenching her fist and commanding one of the giant flowers to spray its noxious vapor at them.
To his shock, Superman yelled in pain and dropped her to cover his eyes.
Ivy could affect him, just like she affected humans. Was he this susceptible to the powers of other metas? Or did this mean Ivy was more powerful than the common meta?
How was Bruce couldn’t deal with something like her taking over Gotham’s criminal underworld? How did Lex know her name? Had he bought her drugs for personal use or to dissect in his labs? Was she an escaped experiment from his company’s transhumanist efforts, like the nanotech he was supposed to display today? Was she here for some kind of revenge or was it a general grudge like she’d claimed at the start?
As he juggled all those theories and the ones about the extent of her power against aliens, it had taken Bruce an embarrassingly long time to process that Superman had mentioned him. Mentioned Batman. Talked about Ivy being ‘his problem’ like he knew for certain that the Bat existed and that he was pursuing her case.
What else did he know?
The cold fear had already trickled into his gut when Superman straightened up, eyes red, not from irritation but the terrible glow that was lit from within him.
Face twisted with anger, he told her, “I warned you.”
Her smug grin fell into abject horror as lasers shot from his eyes.
Spinning midair, he cast his red, eye-watering rays in a circle, cutting and burning all of the monstrous plants Ivy had summoned and making her scream out in agony.
Lex’s vine released him and he would have crashed onto the row of seats beneath if Superman hadn’t rushed underneath and caught him. “I got you!”
In blur, he had placed Lex outside and shot back in to pick up some of the vines he’d burned off and, within a few blinks, he’d tied Ivy up in her own unresponsive extremities. It seemed she had passed out when he’d burned all her effort with his eyes, either from shock, exhaustion or psychic pain.
The sense of dread couldn’t be avoided as Superman rejoined them, Ivy in his arms. “So, what’s the process for your rogues in Gotham?”
“What?” Bruce asked, heart beating way too loud, stuck scrambling for a soothing answer as to what Superman knew of him, of the Bat.
“When the Flash came to pick up his, he said he processed them through his local police and that they had a specific place to keep them while they got their sentence?” Superman explained. “Any idea what I do with this one on your turf? Or do I hand her over to be booked here?”
“I…don’t know. We’ve never had a meta in Gotham before,” Bruce said slowly, stumped. “Don’t think we’re equipped to deal with her as they might be here in Metropolis.”
“Got it. I’ll make sure they put here somewhere covered in metal or concrete in the meantime.” Superman eyed him, visibly concerned. “You don’t look so good. Why don’t you sit or something until I get back?”
With that, he blurred out of sight, leaving them to watch as paramedics arrived to check on the people who lingered to take their breath, and collect those who had been knocked out and left inside. One team specifically came for Lex, led by who Bruce recognized to be his sister, Lena.
Now that they were here, there was probably no reason for Superman to return to check on him.
After he’d agreed to be checked—though he’d refused to remove his shirt—Bruce had been declared to have no breakage but some bruising along his midsection, and that left him free to go.
On their way back to the car, Dick was working out the energy boost he’d gotten from meeting his hero by bouncing around and babbling. Once they were in the car, Bruce had to cut him off and ruin the mood, even if he really didn’t want to, but he needed to know—
“What did you to make that plant drop me?”
Abruptly cut off, Dick left his arms up, still the middle of gesturing about Superman’s terrifying laser vision. “Why?”
“So I can know what works against Posion Ivy’s powers, and know what you were thinking dropping me from that height,” Bruce said flatly. “Did you even consider how I would land?”
Dick lowered his arms. “I did. I’m not stupid.”
“Are you? Because it seemed like you thought I was going to land on all fours like a cat.”
“You’ve jumped off buildings!”
“In my suit and with my gear, and after measuring the position I’m in and what I’d need to do to land safely.” Bruce sought out his eyes, knowing the importance of eye contact in a moment like this. “What I’m wearing right now can’t absorb harsh impacts, not from bullets or leaping off buildings. At best, I could have ended up in the hospital with two broken limbs.”
Dick briefly gaped at him before getting wound up and exclaiming, “No, you wouldn’t have, because Superman was there!”
“What if he wasn’t? What if he was busy saving someone else? Did you think of that?”
“Then I would have tried getting you down another way!” he said frustratedly, voice shaking. “I wouldn’t just let you fall like that, I wouldn’t! Not on purpose! Not without knowing that you wouldn’t end up like them—”
Dick choked on his last words, mouth wobbling, eyes downcast, watching his hands as they clenched on his lap. “I just didn’t want to watch it crush you. I didn’t want to watch you go, and hear your bones, like theirs.” He looked up at him, eyes wet, mouth struggling to stay steady long enough for him to speak in one go. “I couldn’t just watch you die, not when I could do something this time.”
Half his heat from this entire experience evaporated, leaving his posture to slump and his hands to drop from the steering wheel. “I—”
“I knew he would catch you,” Dick added, hurried, upset, blubbering. “I know how fast he is, and that he looked in your direction and would have come to help anyway, I just didn’t want to waste time, you could have been crushed to death by the time he finished pulling you out of the vine.”
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t have let you fall,” Dick insisted, voice small and high under his strained feelings. “I can’t lose you too. Not like that.”
“That’s why I’m mad,” Bruce blurted out. He should have said something else first, pave his way to explaining what he was upset with him for. But he’d gotten to the point and he needed to explain himself better. “It’s not because you helped. It’s because the way you helped was a little tactless and could have ended with you watching me fall, just like your parents.”
Dick let out a sob, tears falling from his big eyes.
Bruce’s heart clenched in his tightened chest, making hurt to breathe out as he added “But you didn’t. You were right, Superman caught me, but he can’t always be there, so, the next time, I’m going to need you to have other contingency plans.”
Dick sniffled, snorting softly. “Like what?”
“Finding something for me to land on, or at the very least, giving me more time to be ready for when the thing holding me lets go,” he said, opening the armrest between them and taking out a few tissues from the box kept in there. “What did you do to make it to that?”
Dabbing his eyes and face with the tissues, Dick took something out of his pocket and it crackled loudly. The pen-shaped taser he’d given him before they’d gone to face Zucco.
“Why do you have that with you?”
“Alfred said that it was better to be safe than sorry, and you gave me this to keep myself safe,” he explained. “So, I carry it everywhere.”
If he’d been a normal guardian, he’d have a problem with his ward carrying a weapon around, but he wasn’t a normal anything, and neither was Dick at this rate. It was smart to keep something on him, not just because of Gotham’s safety ratings, but because he was now Bruce Wayne’s child.
“Smart thinking,” he said, setting a hand on Dick’s shoulder, some contact, some calming intimacy to soothe him. “I would have preferred that you ran out to keep yourself out of harm’s way, but I am glad you’re brave and focused enough to not just withstand the problem but go after it for my sake.”
Dick stopped rubbing at his wet face to aim his wide-eyed surprise upwards. “Really? So, you’re not mad anymore?”
“No, I’ll be upset about the risk and recklessness for a little while, and the whole situation, but I’m not mad at you.”
“Sounds like you’re still mad.”
“Not for the intention and the effort, but the execution.”
“Execution? It’s a plant! I didn’t kill anyone!” he said indignantly, taking Bruce by surprise and making him chuckle softly. “What’s so funny?”
“‘Execution’ here means to carry out something. To undertake it.”
“Oh. Okay.” Dick faced forwards, but still glanced at Bruce, just to be certain. “You’re really not mad?”
“If I was, I would have cancelled the rest of our day and taken you straight home.” Bruce took out his phone to text Clark, tell him that they were on their way to pick him up. “Just…promise me you’ll be more careful next time, okay?”
“You too,” he said. “You get in scarier places than we did today all the time, and I can’t be sure if you’ll come back safe, or at all.”
“Does me going on patrol scare you?”
“Sometimes.” Dick tapped his fingers on his knees, fidgeting. “There are nights where I can’t sleep because I’m worried you won’t come back.”
Guilt stabbed at his center, making him feel awful. “I didn’t know you worried about me that way.”
Dick shrugged. “Can’t help it.”
“I don’t want you to worry, nothing is going to happen to me, nothing I can’t survive,” Bruce told him. “No matter what happens out there, I’ll always come home to you and Alfred.”
“So, you’ll be more careful?”
“I will.”
Dick nodded. “Me too.”
“Good.”
His phone buzzed with Clark’s reply: Are you okay? I just heard about what happened at the expo!
He quickly tapped out: We’re both fine. Have you picked where we’ll have lunch?
Clark immediately replied: Yeah, I’ll give you directions when you get here.
Bruce sent a thumbs-up emoji and dropped his phone on its wireless charger.
They headed out of the parking-lot, and Dick went back to watching the windows for Superman they passed the beginning of rush hour in relative silence, with only his music playing on a soft volume. It was set to Clark’s playlist, half its contents he enjoyed, the other half needed a few listens for him to get what about it was appealing or at least what Clark enjoyed.
Half the artists were people he’d never heard of, others he already knew but hadn’t delved into their discography. He hadn’t expected to ever actively enjoy listening to Coldplay, but Violet Hill was surprisingly atmospheric. He might check out the rest of its album.
When they entered Clark’s street, Dick had already unbuckled his belt, irritating the car into ringing its warning alarm. “You know, if you wanted me to always know that you’re okay, you could let me come with.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on! I could learn how to help better than I did today by actually doing it!”
“Dick, we talked about this how many times now?” Bruce pressed softly on the brakes, slowing their pace as they neared on Clark’s building. “You can help with investigations but no actual leg-work.”
Dick humphed, but truly upset, seemingly just trying his luck. “Then ask someone else to keep an eye on you.”
“Like who?”
“Superman.”
Bruce huffed a single, tired laugh. “Sure. I’ll ask Clark to tell Superman to be Batman’s backup, that won’t sound crazy or suspicious to a reporter at all.”
Dick slumped back against his seat and frustratedly blew his lips like a horse. “Can’t you just tell Clark that you’re like him?”
Startled, Bruce hit the brakes a little too hard when he parked but still had enough unconscious sense to throw his arm out to block Dick from hitting the dash. “What are you talking about?”
“That you can talk to Batman like he talks to Superman?”
Oh. Of course that was what he’d meant.
Bruce tapped out a text announcing to Clark that they’d arrived. “We don’t even know if Clark has spoken to him since his interview, I’m just guessing that he has.”
The unlocked windows had to be part of that mystery.
“You spent a whole day with him and you didn’t ask?” Dick asked, aghast. “That’s, like, the first thing I’d ask!”
“Because you’re a tactless child,” he said flatly. “Which is why you’re the one who’ll ask all the Superman questions for me, because I asked too many invasive things the last time I saw him.”
“Like what?” Dick asked, any lingering sadness pushed out by his wide, curious eyes.
It was going to be a good six or seven years until Bruce felt it was appropriate to discuss this level of interpersonal issues with Dick. “Just…invasive stuff. Things you don’t ask people you barely know.”
That just made him more interested. “Yeah, like what? Because if you didn’t ask him stuff about Superman already, then what did you spend all day talking about?”
“Poison Ivy, who we met today.”
“And?”
“Luthor, hence why we came today.”
Dick wasn’t convinced. “That’s it?”
“That’s all you need to know.”
He rose in his seat, leaning into Bruce’s space. “Why? What are you not telling me?”
Bruce was about to start sweating out his discomfort. “Stuff that doesn’t concern you.”
Dick was now leaning on the armrest to shove his face into Bruce’s. “Doesn’t concern me how? I already know all the other stuff, why not this?”
“Because I said so.”
“But I’m your partner in all this, I need to know!”
“You’re not my partner, you’re my responsibility.” Bruce twisted in his seat, grabbed Dick’s arms and forcefully set him back into his side of the car. “Now, drop it.”
“Or what?”
Or what indeed?
“Or I tell Clark I’m not feeling well and take us straight home.”
Dick was about to object when a knock on the window startled them both.
Bent over with his glasses and damp, curling gleaming in the daylight, Clark waved at them. “Hey.”
Dick didn’t wait for him to back up a safe distance before throwing his door open and flying out to greet him. “Clark! You are not going to believe what just happened!”
Clark had bent down further to face Dick, holding a deep blue, narrow, rectangular gift bag. “And what just happened?”
“Guess!”
Instead of being annoyed at being told to guess, Clark immediately played along, humming pensively as he cupped his chin and tapped his finger against curled lips. “Hmm…did Bruce buy the Gotham Knights?”
He shook his head.
“Oh, even more unbelievable than that? Did he buy the Metropolis Meteors to sabotage them in some Ted Lasso plot?”
“What’s Ted Lasso?”
“One of my favorite shows.”
“Ohhh.” Dick shook his head again. “Then no.”
“Then it must be a weirder kind of unbelievable.” Clark’s eyed rolled up, feigning being in deep thought. “Did you see a flying pig?”
Dick laughed giddily, a rare sound that made Bruce’s lips curl up at the edges. “No, come one! Take this seriously!”
“I am,” Clark said, comically serious. “Strange things happen here a lot, so, if I open my curtains find a pig or even a horse flying by, I can’t say I’ll be too surprised.”
“I’ve heard ‘when pigs fly’ but I never heard about the horse.”
“You haven’t heard of Pegasus?”
Dick shook his head. “What’s that?”
Clark held out his hand. “I’ll tell you if you tell me what happened today.”
Dick slapped his palm. “Deal!”
He didn’t even wait for Clark to ask again, or even bother dragging it out further, he just bounced excitedly as he announced, “I met Superman!”
The humorless act broke at his mention, and Clark’s expression brightened with the big spread of his smile, as if the mere mention of Superman had made his day.
That simple reaction struck Bruce as noteworthy.
Dick animatedly relayed to him his summary of what had happened at the expo, and right towards the end of the story, Clark’s face remained set in its intrigued listening but his eyes slid slowly in Bruce’s direction.
When their eyes met, he flushed and immediately focused back on Dick, giving him that ecstatic smile again when Dick told him about how Superman had saved Bruce.
Bruce felt his own face grow warm, not just from the interaction, but what had led up to it, the mistaken kiss, the wet dream that had followed it, and the increase in masturbation that it had inspired.
Fuck, why did he think hanging out with him this soon was a good idea? It was bad enough that he had done this last time while fixated on the R-rated security footage he’d watched. Now he had to deal with what he’d observed from a distance and what he’d actually experienced.
It didn’t help that he was still quite confused by what this all meant.
When Dick finished recounting today’s excitement he asked, “Was this how you met Superman?”
“Nah, our meeting was quite boring actually,” Clark said, and while it hadn’t deviated from what he’d detailed in his interview with the alien, he seemed to somewhat joking, or at least very amused by something he wasn’t telling them.
“How can meeting him be boring?”
“I meant in comparison to how most people get to meet him. There was no crisis for him to save me from, so, we just talked.”
“And how did you get him to talk to you?” Dick asked, either already doing what Bruce had needed him to do or asking specific questions for his own curiosity’s sake.
Clark shrugged. “I found him flying near the roof of the Planet when I went up to clear my head, and just decided to shoot my shot, and it was just my luck that he was feeling agreeable that night.”
It had sounded oddly convenient when Bruce had read the interview, but hearing out now, he felt that that recollection sounded like it was missing something, almost as if he were censoring it.
What was he leaving out and why?
“What was he doing on the roof?” Dick asked.
“He was there to check on my co-worker, Lois,” Clark said, sounding rehearsed. “He’d saved her earlier from a helicopter crash, but she’d already gone home to rest, and I was working late, so, I got to him first.”
“What did you first say to him? What did he say to you? How did you ask? Did you have to convince him or was it easy?”
“Well, you were there when I asked Bruce for his first interview,” Clark told him, blissfully patient. “Imagine that, but more awkward and desperate.”
Dick giggled amusedly. “He said yes because he felt like he owed you.”
Clark spared Bruce another glance, less nervous than the first attempt. “Is that so?”
Bruce wanted to reach out and clap his hand on Dick’s mouth before this subtle interrogation went in a lousy direction. He had no good, quippy response so he just remained silent until Clark began to straighten up.
Dick was about to ask something else when Clark asked, “Mind if I steal your seat? The back won’t have good space for my legs.”
That was enough of a distraction to make Dick forget what he was going to ask, as he threw himself across the backseat and left Clark to settle in the front and adjust the chair for his height.
“Hey,” Clark greeted him, somewhat unenthused, gaze aimed above his eyes.
“Hi,” Bruce said, too aware of the awkward air between them.
The silence stretched for an uncomfortable amount of time until Dick stuck his head between their chairs. “Where are we going now?”
Clark broke their skewed staring contest first, settling back into his earlier tone. “Bruce didn’t tell you?”
Dick shook his head no, despite him having known for days what the program for today was.
Perhaps Bruce should be worried about how easily Dick took to deception. It could just be a side to him as a born-and-raised-performer, but that wasn’t without its concerns.
He’ll deal with it later.
“We’re going to have a late lunch in a Mediterranean restaurant and then we’re going to the cinema,” Clark said to Dick. “Unless you want to do something else?”
“No!” Dick jumped backwards into his seat. “Let’s go!”
Before Clark’s seatbelt could click into place, Bruce was driving them away from his building. He didn’t open the GPS just so Clark could give him directions, and fill the silence with random facts and recollections about certain spots they passed on their way to his chosen restaurant.
Throughout their drive, he was quiet, insides bubbling with all the stupid or disastrous things he wanted to ask Clark, things he couldn’t utter in someone else’s presence, let alone a child, and things that would likely end in his number being blocked.
There was an odd pressure in the front of the car, one that hadn’t been there before, and while Clark did a great job of acting like nothing bothered him, Bruce could feel the odd weight to the atmosphere that hadn’t been there before.
They reached their destination, Canopus’s Mediterranean Grill in a little longer than half-an-hour, parked in front of the bank next to it, and headed in with Clark holding the door open for them.
Canopus’s interior was nautical themed, its decor packed with anchors, nets, ship steering wheels, mermaids and waves, all in dark blue and white, like the Greek flag.
It was a relatively small place, only one dining room with the kitchen at the back, but out of ten tables, nine were occupied.
The waitress waved at Clark as she rushed over. She was no taller than five feet, with dark olive skin and big, black curls pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Oh, good, I was worried you were going to make me hold a table for nothing again.”
“Youstina, that was one time!” Clark complained good-naturedly, bending down to accept a hug. “And it was an emergency, it’s not like I waste anyone’s time on purpose!”
She had to roll up on her toes for her chin to reach his shoulder. “
Having properly looked over Clark’s shoulder, Youstina had finally registered Bruce’s presence, her dark eyes bulging with surprise. “Bruce Wayne is here.”
Clark withdrew from the hug with a brief, politely amused laugh. “Yeah, but we’d appreciate it if the rest of the street didn’t know that.”
Youstina looked back and forth between the three of them, thick, confused brows slowly softening apart. “And you brought him here?”
“Is there a problem?” Bruce asked. “We can go if you want.”
In the grips of instantaneous panic, Youstina stomped over, hands held out before to ward him off. “NO! No, no, no! I just never thought I’d see you! Here! See you here! But please, your table is ready!”
As she got them settled, rambling through her exaggerated hospitality and professionalism, Clark seemed to be trying not to laugh. When she had handed them their menus and shot into the kitchen, he finally broke, cackling softly.
“Is this how people always get when they see you?” he asked, humored.
“More or less,” Bruce said, looking at the menu but paying attention enough to understand what he was reading. “Is the waitress an old friend of yours?”
“You could say that.”
Dick flipped through his menu, not looking up as he teasingly asked, “Was she your girlfriend?”
Clark snorted and shook his head. “No. I just used to work here when I was in university.”
“You didn’t like her?” Dick pressed. “She seems to like you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Clark glanced Bruce’s way as he answered him, “But she wasn’t much older than you when I started working here, so, it was a puppy crush on her end.”
Bruce couldn’t blame her. For a vulnerable person, Clark was probably the safest option to fantasize about because he wouldn’t notice, and if he did, he wouldn’t indulge them.
He couldn’t remember what ‘having a crush’ felt like, but he supposed Dick might remind him once he got a little older.
…Now that he thought of it, thought of his wet dream and his current sexual hyper-awareness of Clark, Bruce supposed his childhood fondness for Brendan Fraser was a bit suspect. Then there was the inexplicable amount of times he’d watched the Star Wars prequels. He didn’t remember having any fascination with Natalie Portman, who was as petite, delicate and pretty as Selina, what he did know was that Hayden Christensen’s much maligned awkward delivery and butchered characterization hadn’t bothered him at all. Because he hadn’t been listening to him, he’d been watching him. Ogling him.
Bruce looked at Clark as he explained the menu to Dick, telling him what he thought of the moussaka here or what dolma was, and he felt his mouth slowly open as the realization set in.
Under the hideous glasses, messy curls and baggy shirts and old, ripped jeans, Clark looked like a larger merge between Fraser in The Mummy and Christensen in Revenge of the Sith.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck? Why had it taken him over twenty years to realize this?
As if he sensed himself being watched, Clark looked right at him questioningly. “Do you know what you’re getting?”
“No,” he said flatly, feeling panic rise up within him like bile.
“Need any help picking something?”
“I…” He looked at his menu and his sight blurred. “Pick for me?”
“You sure about that?” Clark asked, growing visibly concerned.
“I trust your judgement.”
“If you say so.”
Youstina returned once Clark waved at the kitchen door, she must have been watching them from the window. “So, the usual?”
“Not today,” Clark said, before listing what each of them would have, all with surprisingly good pronunciation of what Bruce figured were Greek and Arabic words.
As she backed away, she gave Bruce in particular an odd look and then dipped back into the kitchen.
Just as Bruce had gotten his wits together and was about to nudge Dick to ask more questions about Superman, Youstina returned carrying a tray laden with a jug and three glasses.
“Say when,” she said to Dick, pouring the light, bright green drink for him.
“When,” he said amusedly as his glass grew full.
She beamed at him, and seemed about to ruffle his hair when she remembered Bruce’s presence, hand frozen a few inches above Dick’s head as she stared at Bruce out the corner of her eye.
Mood ruined, she quietly retreated into the kitchen. Bruce couldn’t help feeling a bit bogged down, because while he did benefit from being unapproachable, he didn’t want harmless people to fear him.
“What is this?” Dick asked, carefully sipping his drink.
“Mint lemonade.” Clark picked up the jug and filled his glass before reaching for Bruce’s, not bothering with the hyperaware distance others kept around him. “I drank so much of this when I worked here.”
“How long were you here?”
“Most of my time at university, had to leave when I started interning at the Planet because the hours just didn’t match up anymore,” he said. “Still visited when I could. Even wrote one of my first articles about the owners.”
“What was so interesting about them?”
“How they came here with their families as children, met at a Christmas market, got married despite both their families being against it, and put everything on the line to open this place, quitting their ‘acceptable’ jobs that were going nowhere after the economy crashed, and saved up to open this place and how it succeeded from word-of-mouth,” Clark summarized, waving his hand as he spoke. “The theme was perseverance, and I thought they fit it perfectly.”
“I figured your parents would fit that theme as well.”
Clark pulled a face, squishing one side so his eye shut and his mouth half-curled up in an uncomfortable, humorless smirk. “Yeah, but that’s literally too close to home. I don’t like putting too much of myself in my work.”
“Isn’t that a part of interviews? Giving your experience with that person?”
“I give some personal impressions, but I can’t say everything I’m feeling and thinking because that’s not just unprofessional, it can get me into trouble.”
“With your editor or with the subject?”
“Both,” he said with a shrug. “And that subject’s fans and haters, who might take any clear like or dislike as an excuse to attack me.”
“Did that happen before?”
He blew out a long breath. “Yeah. I interviewed an author my first year, it was a job Lois had passed on to me because she didn’t care for it, and after it came out I suddenly had my social media spammed with people who were against that author’s works. Had someone threaten to ‘get me’ at work.”
“And what was so bad about these books?”
He softly rolled his eyes. “They talked about death and grief in a fantastical way. Like the main character was a resurrected child who could now see ghosts and raise the dead. A lot of people thought it was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘grotesque’ and ‘traumatic’, as if children don’t know what death is.”
Bruce would be lying if he said he hadn’t browsed several parenting guides and advice columns when he’d brought Dick home, but he did feel that a good half of them were overdoing the protectiveness to a damaging extent. This sounded like it was from the same sort of parents who raised anxious, antisocial, hypersensitive children who had meltdowns when they encountered minor conflicts.
They were probably going to be among Dick’s classmates. He really didn’t want him to end up like them, like him.
“Is that what’s in the gift bag?” Bruce asked, looking at the bag on the floor by Clark’s chair.
“Ah, no, it’s another book,” Clark said bashfully. “I had thought about bringing that one, but I wanted to ask you about it first, in case you also felt it was too much or too soon.”
Bruce looked at Dick, who was watching something on his phone while he slurped his lemonade. “No, I think it might help. I have been meaning to get him to do something fun that isn’t in his phone.”
“That’s great! I can probably get him a signed copy!” Clark’s eyes flit in Dick’s direction questioningly. “Can I give him the one I brought now?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Clark beamed at him, bright with relief, making his guts wiggle with an uncomfortable pressure.
He gentle tapped Dick on the shoulder and handed him the gift bag. “This is for you.”
Dick immediately dropped his phone and drink and stuck his face into the bag, once he registered what it was, he removed the illustrated paperback and examined it with awe.
It was a copy of the first Percy Jackson book. He remembered reading it as a child, and couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t brought home the series for him yet. Though, it was a good thing he’d forgotten, it now allowed someone else to convince Dick to try screen-less escapism, something that Bruce would have probably gotten some pushback from as his guardian.
Once he’d finished reading the summary on the back, Dick aimed his big, excited eyes up at Clark. “But it’s not my birthday.”
“I know, but I needed to know if you’d like it first before I got you something similar for your birthday,” Clark said. “So, give this one a shot and tell me what you think of it.”
“I will! Thank you!” Dick tilted his chair onto only two of its legs so he could lean over and hug Clark, whose embrace dwarfed him.
He didn’t seem to mind the gesture at all, as he waited for Dick to pull back first, and open the book to aim his openly affected expression at Bruce. He was smiling, but there was something sad about the set of his face, as if he’d just realized something upsetting.
While he couldn’t figure out what Clark was thinking, Bruce knew he had the same conflicted feeling, torn between being pleased that someone was able to make Dick smile and being bogged down by the fact that that reaction came from someone else’s actions.
It didn’t help that watching them made his intense reaction towards Clark worse, because now he knew that this was someone they would both benefit from having in their lives.
He just couldn’t figure out what Clark was truly getting out of this, outside of a few free meals that were pocket change to Bruce. If he did have feelings for him, and last week’s kiss wasn’t just some confused, desperate, random act, then he would have to wait until Bruce figured out what he was feeling exactly.
As nice as he was, Clark was still a man in his late-twenties, a man who had let mindless arousal and flattery lead him into sleeping with Lex Luthor, who had far less hangups about sex and intimacy than most people.
Bruce didn’t even know if he could let someone touch him that way yet, let someone bigger than him be on top of him.
Or inside him.
That thought scared the proverbial shit out of him, and not in the way it did for most men. He didn’t find the act inherently emasculating or ruinous, but it was plainly leaving his body, leaving himself at someone else’s mercy, to cause him pain, cause damage, and not care what he felt as long as he served his purpose.
That might have been what Harvey had wanted, but he doubted Clark would do that, considering how upset he’d been about the prospect of being used for sex.
Wherever this went, he needed to be certain before he reopened this topic.
The appetizers were swiftly plopped right in front of them, plates of stuffed grape leaves, chicken liver in pomegranate molasses, spanakopita, and a basket of fresh flatbread that was glazed with olive oil and what smelled like za’atar.
Dick ate with one hand while he kept the book open with the other, already engrossed, allowing Bruce to try to small-talk again while they waited for their meals.
“So, about the response you got to your interviews, how weird did people get about the Superman one?”
Clark covered his mouth as he talked while he chewed. “I had to log out of all social media for like two weeks because of the insane amount of traffic I got.”
“People were mad at you for talking to him?”
“Not just that, a lot were calling me a liar and insisting that this was a hoax and how he should find out where I lived and kill—” he stopped, looking in Dick’s direction worriedly, only to him busy being intrigued by the stuffed grape leaves he was eating. “They had a lot of violent fantasies, is what I’m saying. And a lot of the ones that did believe me either thought I had left out some stuff, that I was a coward for not asking questions the way Lois does, or that Superman was lying about half of them.”
“Sounds like they made you regret doing it.”
“Nah, it was still the best thing for my career so far, and it wasn’t like I didn’t expect people to get weird about their perceptions of my subjects, I got similar reactions for Lex,” he said, before pinning him with his gaze. “Got some fun questions about you though, mostly at work.”
Bruce swallowed his half-chewed spanakopita. “Like what?”
Once again, Clark glanced at Dick. “I’ll tell you later.”
“What can you tell me now?” Bruce asked, hoping he was being subtle. “There had to be some fun parts you wanted to reply to about Superman at least, and how wrong some people were about him.”
“Oh, for sure. He seems to have picked up this following of really miserable men who think him being so powerful means he’s this uppity megalomaniac or unfeeling, vengeful god who will one day rain fire on us or something.” He rolled his eyes. “There’s a faction of them who seem to want him to destroy places and pick and choose who dies in a crisis or just be some volatile character from mythology. It’s very weird.”
He may have dubbed them weird, but these unsettling ideas did seem to bother him.
“Not too dissimilar from the theories floating around about the Batman.”
“Oh, what I’d give to find that guy,” Clark sighed. “Have there been any sightings of him recently?”
“A few, but you never know what to believe.” It was hard for him not to smirk at that thought, and how Clark could very well meet the Bat soon. “Why? You want to interview a shadow monster?”
“Honestly, yeah,” Clark laughed nervously. “It would get me laughed at at the office, for sure, no one would believe I actually found and talked to him, but it would satisfy my own curiosity.”
This was it, this was how he’d figure out how to approach Clark as the Bat.
He leaned in, sipping from his mint lemonade, an interesting and refreshing combination, he’d have to take Alfred here to try it. “What would you say to him, if you did happen to find him?”
“Uhh, to start? What are you?” he laughed again, suddenly avoidant. “If he’s a vampire, like you said, or he’s some kind of demon or something from another dimension, or an unseelie faerie creature, or even some mutant born from toxic waste, he could have such a fascinating perspective on things. He could answer a lot of questions for me, he could even help me with some of my stories, give me information I can’t get from anyone else,” he rambled excitedly. “I could find out if there’s more like him, or if he’s the last of his kind.”
Bruce did feel like he was the last of his kind, until he’d watched Dick be orphaned. But even then, he was still a human among billions, and there were orphans in every corner of the globe, just as there were resentful, hopeless, vengeful young men like those who had supported the Riddler.
“Do you think Superman really is the last of his kind?” Bruce asked. “Do you believe most of what he told you?”
“Yes,” Clark said with immediate confidence.
“How are you so sure? You only talked to him for what? An hour?”
“It was a lot more than that, getting everything down took the whole night.”
Bruce raised his brows at him. “So, he just stuck around to talk to you for a whole night? For no reason?”
“I wouldn’t say making a statement on your purpose and intentions is ‘no reason’,” Clark objected. “Judging by the responses I got, it was necessary that he say something instead of letting people project their beliefs onto him.”
“So, was it his idea or yours?” Bruce asked. “Did he come looking for Lois with the intention of having her introduce him or did you take a risk and find him welcoming it?”
“I…both?” Clark said uncertainly. “It worked out for us both.”
“It’s just, you must know so many people are wondering why he chose you to make first contact, and I can’t help wonder what he was thinking,” Bruce explained, hoping he didn’t sound too suspicious. “Or what he said that didn’t make it into the final draft.”
Discomfort worked its way into Clark’s posture and tugged at the edges of his face. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing. I’m just wondering why you were basically chosen to be a modern-day prophet.”
Clark chuckled awkwardly. “He’s not a god, Bruce.”
“He sure seems to have the powers of one, if he’d showed up a couple of centuries back people would be worshipping him, a lot more than they already are,” Bruce pointed out. “Maybe he knew that you had such thoughts about him when he chose you.”
“He didn’t, considering I’d never written anything about him, not even a post on social media,” he said tersely. “I know I might seem a bit green to you, but I have been in Metropolis for a decade, I know how pessimistic and suspicious people can get, and it’s not helpful or productive or even healthy to keep thinking that way about everything, especially about things that never gave you a reason to doubt them.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t be cautious.”
“Who says I’m not?”
“You blindly believing his stories, for one.”
Clark scoffed. “I don’t blindly believe anything, that kind of defeats the purpose of being a journalist, don’t you think?”
“Then how did he convince you?”
“We talked for hours, Bruce, if he were lying I would have noticed,” Clark snapped firmly. “There ways to trip people up and get them to lower their guard, even if they’re very image-conscious. You can also figure out if someone is being honest about their life’s story based on how they talk about other things and people, and everything he said added up.”
He really should have left these questions to Dick like they’d agreed earlier, but he just couldn’t help himself.
Just to try and save face, he kicked Dick under the table, regaining his attention. Thankfully, the boy had been primed for performance and could pick up on silent cues.
Dick pulled his chair in closer to Clark’s and asked, with all the unsuspecting innocence in the world, “Ignore him, I want to know if he has other powers like the laser vision we saw today!”
Clark’s offense quickly faded as he shifted his focus from Bruce to Dick. “Uh, yeah, I guess. Depends on what you’re aware of.”
“If he can shoot lasers from his eyes, can he do it from his fingertips or his mouth like the fire benders in Avatar?”
Proving Bruce’s instincts right, Clark giggled at that comparison. “No, he can’t bend any elements, but he can freeze things with his breath.”
Dick gasped with genuine excitement. “Ice breath and laser vision? Can he do that at the same time?”
“Maybe? I don’t know if he’s tried.”
“If he can’t bend elements, then how can he fly?” Dick asked. “Or is he just jumping really high?”
“He can jump really high, but he does fly, and I honestly have no idea how that works.”
Dick pressed his fingertips to his temples. “What about powers we can’t see? Do you think he’s got mind-control? Or he can read minds?”
“Now, isn’t that something that would give people more fuel to distrust him,” he commented amusedly. “But, no. But there are other ways he can figure out what someone’s feeling.”
“How?”
“He can hear heartbeats, and smell if your body chemistry changes,” Clark said, as if that wasn’t one of the most terrifying things Bruce had heard so far.
Against his will, Bruce’s heartbeat skyrocketed, and they both seemed to notice that something was off about him.
“What’s wrong?” Clark asked, all prior irritation with him gone.
“Nothing.”
“Is it about what I said?”
“No.”
He didn’t believe him. “Then what is it?”
Bruce shrugged.
Clark glanced at Dick questioningly, asking if it were something not to be discussed in front of him. Bruce shook his head and started taking calming breaths as he raised his glass, hiding half his face behind it.
When he’d calmed himself down, and set down the empty glass, he had regained enough control to smile. “Continue.”
Dick took that as his cue to continually adorably interrogating their guest. “From how far away can he hear someone?”
“Mmm, depends on if he’s listening for them already or not,” Clark said, not quite unsticking his gaze from Bruce. “There are a handful of heartbeats he recognizes and checks up on.”
“Like who?”
This response took a little longer than the rest. “I don’t know.”
Dick wiggled in his seat, whining frustratedly. “Come on, you gotta have an idea on who he likes that much.”
A faint flush spread across his mid-face, and he hunched slightly, embarrassed. “Can’t think of anyone apart from maybe Lois.”
“But, like, he had friends here, right? Someone he lives with?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you at least ask him where he goes when he’s not saving the day?”
“Why do you want to know so bad?” Clark asked him, with much more patience and good faith than he did with Bruce.
“Because every superhero or spy has a hideout or a base or a bunker!” Dick said excitedly. “Oh! Does he live in his spaceship?”
Accepting that cartoon-logic excuse, Clark shook his head.
“Then where does he go?”
Clark seemed to be debating his response, his face uncertain, his answer preceded by a long exhalation that deflated his posture. “That was one of the things that got left off the record, for his safety, as well as everyone else’s.”
“I won’t tell anyone!” Dick insisted. “I’ve got no one to tell!”
For some reason, that made Clark’s jaw drop and stay that way until he found something to say next. “You are going to have friends when school starts.”
“Doesn’t mean I’ll like any of them enough to trust them,” he said, sounding upsettingly like Bruce.
God, he really did need to keep Clark around, just for his influence.
He sighed heavily. “You promise not to tell anyone?”
Dick held out his pinky. “I promise.”
Clark hooked his much larger finger with Dick’s. “Okay then. Superman has a home somewhere in the Arctic Circle, and from there he can fly anywhere in the world, but he mostly sticks to this part because it’s where he first landed when he came to Earth.”
Dick let out a big, fascinated gasp. “He’s with the penguins?”
He snorted before chuckling. “Penguins are in the Antarctic, in the south. He’s in the north, with the polar bears.”
Dick nodded, interested. “Can he talk to the polar bears? Can he talk to animals?”
“No, the only animals he can talk to are humans. And Gorilla Grodd.”
Dick’s excitement dimmed from his confusion. “…we’re animals?”
“Yes, we’re mammals, like apes.”
“Ew.”
Clark cracked up harder. “You don’t like apes, or even monkeys?”
“We had monkeys in the circus, they were very creepy, I hated the sounds they made so much,” he explained, revolted by the memory. “Is Superman a mammal?”
This line of thought really amused him. “I think so, yes.”
“So, if he’s like us, does that mean everyone on his planet was like us, or did they have metahumans like we do?”
“That’s one of the things I never got around to asking, but I could next time.”
Dick jumped on that part for the both of him. “There’s going to be a next time?”
“Uh, yeah, I think so?”
“You’ve talked to him again?”
“Yeah, a few times,” Clark said with awkward spacing, like he was trying to avoid saying something.
“Did he meet you on the roof of your work building again? Is that where we can find him?”
Clark spluttered out his alarm. “No! No, there are other places.”
“Like where?”
“I’d rather not tell you, in case you go there looking for him,” Clark deflected. “But he can technically meet me anywhere I am.”
“How? Does he have a phone?”
“No, but, like I said, he can hear people when they call, and know where they are by their heartbeat.”
“So, he knows your heartbeat?” Dick set his elbows on the table and his cheeks in his palms, gazing up at him wondrously. “He must really like you to do that.”
Clark grew avoidant, out of embarrassment rather than anything truly suspicious. “Yeah, I guess.”
Bruce had a feeling that Superman was the reason behind Clark’s unlocked windows.
He also had a feeling that all of these answers were not given in that night he’d managed to interview him on the roof. It probably hadn’t remained on the roof to begin with.
Did he regularly visit him at his apartment? Would he see that on his footage or would they have strictly spoken on the fire escape? Or even the roof of his building? How often did this happen for Clark to be certain about what he’d been told, and to form such a clear attachment to Superman?
Was it more than plain awe and hero worship? Did he have feelings for this thing?
Something akin to envy raised his body temperature from the midsection-up to his flushing face.
Clark was spared further interrogation when Youstina returned with a large tray and a foldable stool, using it to hold the tray while she set out their dishes. Served first, Dick had gotten deep-fried squid with a side of fries and seasoned salad that was mostly cucumbers and tomatoes and coriander.
Clark got his next, what seemed to be five poached eggs in a deep dish, surrounded by a thick mix of stewed vegetables. Bruce could smell the spice mix from his end of the table.
“Here you go, just the way you like it,” Youstina said, before plopping a small jar next to his plate. “If not, here, for your lead stomach.”
“It’s not that spicy!” Clark popped open the jar, and judging by Dick’s reaction, it was, in fact, that spicy.
She waved him off, not hearing it. “I swear, your tolerance for this stuff is inhuman.”
He laughed way too loudly at that jab. “If that were the case, no one would be making any kind of hot sauce. It’s proof that there’s a market for it.”
“Just like there’s a market for cauliflower pizza.” She gagged loudly, before turning to Bruce and shuttering her expression into bland professionalism as she placed his plate before him.
As she scurried off, Bruce peered down at his plate, breathing in the scent of its seasoning, mouth instantly flooding with saliva. It was a bowl of yellow rice dotted with vegetables and pieces of browned chicken.
It was either because he hadn’t finished a full meal in two days, or because Alfred tended to be stingy with the spices his homeland had invaded countries for, but the first spoonful was barely in his mouth before he was already shoving another one in.
“Good?” Clark asked him, while dumping a tablespoon of the vivid red hot sauce on his eggs.
Bruce nodded, his stomach deciding to now start cramping with hunger, as if the smell and taste reminded it of the fact. After he swallowed, he asked, “What is all this?”
“Yours is maqlouba, mine is shakshouka, and Dick just got one of the kids’ meals,” Clark said, not even bothering to blow the steam off his spoonful before shoving it in his mouth.
So, not only did he have a high spice tolerance, he didn’t mind his mouth getting scalded either?
Clark held out his spoonful. “Want to try it?”
“Should’ve asked me that before you put that hot sauce all over it,” Bruce said, half-joking.
“Oh, right. I don’t know how I forgot that,” he laughed softly. “But this is one of the things I sometimes make at home, so I can send you the recipe, free of harissa of course.”
“That’d be nice. It might be good for Alfred to shake things up a bit.” He turned to Dick. “How’s yours?”
Putting all his effort into chewing his squid, Dick just nodded at him.
The rest of their meal passed in companionable silence, warmer than the ones they had at home, making him consider doing this weekly because he couldn’t remember when he’d finished a plate with this much gusto. The same went for Dick, who, like Bruce, was used to eating certain things mostly to maintain his strength and energy rather than for the enjoyment of it.
When Youstina arrived with the check, he snatched it out of Clark’s reach, tucked his card in and a cash tip in, and tried smiling at her. She gave him a nervous grin and dipped back, not into the kitchen, but around the corner, where he could hear her speaking to someone in what might have been Greek.
When she returned, she had an older man and woman in tow, who Clark jumped up to greet, bending over to embrace each.
Just seeing the way these people received him, how happy they were to see a former employee, made Bruce ache. Few people were genuinely happy to see him, and it was never about him exactly, just either relief that the Bat had shown up to scare off a mugger or starstruck awe at seeing Bruce Wayne, the elusive local celebrity. He got both those reactions from Officer Martinez.
He wondered what it would take to have that unguarded smile Clark now had aimed at him again, namely the one he’d gotten when they’d met for his interview.
When they parted, Clark gestured to Dick, who waved, and then Bruce, who stood and offered his hand.
“Bruce, these are Yorgos and Nadia, my old boss and manager, they introduced me to a whole new side of cooking.”
Yorgos, a pot-bellied, very tan, middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard and features straight off the bust of a Greek philosopher shook his hand firmly, not registering who he was. Nadia, on the other hand, recognized him.
With the long face, beige skin, big, melancholy dark eyes and black curly hair of a Faiyum mummy portrait, Nadia gently took his hand and watched him with an open-mouthed fascination as Clark kept talking about how she’d exposed him to spicy food.
Just before she let go, she whispered, “You look just like your mother.”
That simple remark, that basic fact made him feel like he’d been punched right between his eyes, leaving him cross-eyed and lightheaded.
“I—” he stopped, unsure how to respond.
Instead of wondering how she knew his mother well enough to remember her face, or why she thought this was a nice thing to bring up, he couldn’t stop wondering about how she would have looked if she had lived long enough to be Nadia’s age, if his father had reached Yorgos’.
His parents had married young, they hadn’t had the chance to reach middle-age. Within a few years, he would be older than his mother ever had been, but he would still see her green eyes and firm mouth looking back at him in the mirror.
Staring at nothing, hearing only his heavy breathing, he was nudged out of his daze by the grip on his hand and snapped out of it entirely by the arm that had settled around his shoulders, steering him towards the door.
“—wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Clark called over his shoulder as he followed Bruce out of the restaurant. “Say hi to Tony for me!”
Once the door slammed shut and they were on the sidewalk, Bruce let out a heavy breath and got back in control of his wits.
Dick was still holding his hand, round eyes searching his face. Bruce squeezed his hand comfortingly.
Clark’s arm soft slide back off his shoulders until his hand gripped one at the junction between neck and shoulder, thumb above his collarbone, like he was feeling for his pulse.
“Hey,” he said softly, seeking out his eyes. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he whispered. “Just wasn’t expecting that.”
“I’m so sorry, I’d completely forgotten that that was a possibility,” Clark told him, visibly affected. “Do you want to stop here and head home?”
“No. I said I was fine,” he insisted, for some reason feeling compelled to put his hand over Clark’s, anchoring him to the both of them. “Any idea why she said that, though?”
“I mean, for women her age it’s not that weird, your mother was kind of the Princess Diana of the East Coast,” Clark said awkwardly. “At least, that’s what my mom said after she read our interview.”
He looked down, sad, avoidant. “Oh. Right. I forgot.”
Clark’s grip tightened, thumb stroking his vulnerable skin, making a rapid flush overtake the startled chill he’d been fighting off. “You sure you don’t want to call it a day?”
“Yes, I’m not that fragile,” he all but snapped. “Let’s go.”
With one last squeeze, Clark withdrew his touch, taking half of that warmth with him.
Dick didn’t throw himself in the backseat this time, he climbed in normally, making Bruce feel bad for ruining the mood.
The drive to the open-air mall was a different kind of quiet than their meal had been, making him want to fix things immediately.
As they left the parking lot for the direction of the cinema, he took Dick’s hand again and bumped his arm against Clark’s. When he looked at him with a confused frown, Bruce bumped him again and tried giving him an encouraging look, raised brows and a close-mouthed smile.
Clark took that as a sign to throw his arm back over his shoulders, soothing Bruce’s worries, banishing the arresting freeze in his chest, as if the late-June air wasn’t hot enough to melt it for him.
At least, until they had reached the ticket booth and he felt that draining cold from Nadia’s comment return in full force, leaving him wondering why he had agreed to this in the first place.
Clark chatted up the vendor and picked up Dick, giggling and unbothered, to jokingly show that they had a third person with them for the child-price ticket, and he managed to pay before Bruce could unstick himself form his position and follow them inside.
Dick sped ahead of them, excitement unaffected by the fact that he’d just eaten, doing inadvisable cartwheels in the open, carpeted lobby that lead to the cardboard ads of the available films or even the upcoming ones. He came to a stop by the depiction of the Muppets and Clark kneeled ahead to take a picture of him with them.
Bruce wanted to feel nothing but relief for how this decision had turned out, how this had been a good idea, but he couldn’t shake the upsetting unease that had gripped him again.
Fact of the matter was, Bruce hadn’t been in a cinema since he was a child. Since his parents were murdered. And now he felt like he was fighting off both intrusive thoughts of that night, and the panic attack the memory flashes stoked.
Going in, he had been as happy as Dick, his father finally making good on the Family Day he’d promised him and his mother, taking them to see the The Legend of Zorro, the sequel to a movie Bruce had played a lot at home. His father had joked that his fondness for it was because of Catherine Zeta-Jones, but he’d been ten, he hadn’t understood why Thomas had singled her out over Zorro himself, with his sword, his mask and his cape.
Once they’d left the concession stand and found and settled in their seats, Clark turned and pressed his mouth against his ear. “You sure you’re okay? You look like you’re waiting for a bomb to go off.”
“I’m trying to not think of the last time I saw a film on the big screen,” he admitted.
They faced each other, and as the light dimmed for the trailers to start playing, he watched Clark’s teasing smile drop into open-mouthed horror.
As the trailer for the next Pixar sequel played, Clark said to him, “Why did you agree to this?”
“Because I need to get out of my comfort zone,” he replied, tapping his fingers on the armrest. “And I can’t subject Dick to my miserable lifestyle, it’s not fair to him. He deserves what I didn’t get.”
“Not at your expense.”
“It’s not costing me anything. It’s something I’ve needed to do for a long time,” he said. “I can’t keep letting my fears hold me back, especially when they start affecting others, and affect me helping others.”
“Need of the many,” Clark sighed.
“Outweigh the needs of the few,” he finished for him.
That urged Clark to face him again, the lights from the screen shining on his curly hair. He had taken off his glasses, he must have been longsighted, and though it was too dark to make out his face clearly, Bruce could clearly read his expression. He was no longer upset at how he’d inadvertently brought his friend to a place that had unearthed his trauma, but he seemed relieved that Bruce still had his wits about him to finish that quote for him.
It might be a while until they got another Star Trek movie, but he could invite Clark over to watch on the gigantic flatscreen TV he’d gotten so Dick could watch his cartoons.
“I wanted this to be a good day for all of us,” Clark said, the blueness of his eyes vivid even in the dimness of the theater. “But it seems like it’s been stressful from the minute you got here.”
“You keep forgetting that I’m from Gotham, I’m used to stressful environments, even if it’s just road rage and drunk fights at bars,” Bruce told him. “Also, Dick got to finally meet Superman, so I wouldn’t call this day a bad one, not even by a long shot.”
His smile in this lighting emphasized the grooves of his dimples, a pleasant trait that made Bruce’s heart flutter for a far more pleasant reason than panic, but the confusion it wrought wasn’t welcomed.
In lieu of another reply, Clark took the hand tapping on the armrest and gave it a meaningful squeeze, which did help anchor him to the moment and make it easier to push the insistent memories back to the edges of his mind.
There would no confusion bangs off the speakers for gunshots—he had heard enough of those up close to become desensitized—and no vivid reminders of the sound of his mother’s pearls scattering or how warm their blood had been on his hands. There was only the sound of Dick laughing at the selected gags in the trailers, Clark’s big hand holding his, and the low-stakes bright colors on the screen.
The film began and for a blissful ninety minutes, Bruce forgot himself, becoming just another viewer in the theater here with his kid, laughing at the Muppets’ shenanigans as they bounced around Metropolis.
There was even a passing gag with a blue, dark-haired Muppet that was clearly a stand-in for Superman and it had Clark laughing so hard he’d started snorting, which made Bruce’s own quiet chuckles rise into proper laughter.
They held hands for at least half an hour of the run time.
The credits rolled to a ‘gag reel’ of the Muppets and human actors pretending to mess up takes. Some people had gotten up and left, but Clark’s hands on their shoulders kept them both in their seats for the post-credit scene, where a silver flying saucer arrived to announce that Megaman—the Superman Muppet—had a long-lost cousin. The scene then faded to the announcement that they would return in The Muppets on Mars.
They emerged with Dick in a stellar mood, talking to Clark about his favorite parts and how he had seen some of the locations in the movie today. On their way through the parking-lot, he slowed down a bit and asked, “Do you think what happened at the end could happen to Superman?”
“That other aliens show up?” Clark asked. “I don’t doubt it, we’ve already seen a few species.”
“No, not that,” Dick said frustratedly, jumping around to face them, now walking backwards. “That his kind of aliens show up.”
Clark slowed his pace and removed his hands from his pockets to tuck them under his arms, an unconscious display of unease. “I don’t know how likely that is, considering his planet’s gone.”
“There could be a handful that were off-world when that all happened,” Bruce suggested. “If they were capable of the speedy space-travel that brought him here, then there have to be at least a few who lived on other moons and planets.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were him.”
“Still weird that he came here by himself, didn’t bring a sibling or a spouse or anything,” Bruce pointed out, hoping this unguarded moment would allow something to slip. “If he’s saving people here all the time, why couldn’t he save anyone back home?”
“Because he couldn’t,” Clark said, walking slow enough to match Bruce’s unhurried speed. “He couldn’t do anything for anyone back there, so, now he’s trying to do anything for anyone here.”
Bruce thought of how he had started small, looking for muggers and thugs like the one who’d killed his parents, breaking their arms and smashing their skulls against walls while their would-be victims fled, making sure no one had to suffer the fate of his parents, or himself. It made him wonder if Superman was as genuine as Clark believed him to be, as helpful and heroic as he’d witnessed him be today, had this duty he’d undergone been a decision he’d made as he’d fled for Earth? Or had it been one he’d made once he’d seen that things here could get bad, but not so bad that he’d be helpless to stop it once again?
“So, it’s survivor’s guilt?”
“Not entirely, no,” Clark said, looking at his feet. “It would be nice if there were others out there, we could learn so much about what their world was like, document what they knew, how their language worked.”
“Can’t you do that with him?” Bruce asked. “Ask if he wants to tell you about how different and similar his planet was, how he’s adjusting here, how to say the usual phrases we learn first in other languages?”
“You want me to ask him how he’d say ‘Where is the library?’”
His immediate laugh took him by surprise. “I think ‘my hovercraft is full of eels’ would be more fitting.”
Clark snorted, unfolding from his weary hunch to aim a fond smirk at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Dick had beaten them to the car, diving in across the backseat. Clark softly shut the door but lingered by his own. “Hey, uh, while we’re alone for a second, I just wanted to make sure you’re really not mad about last time.”
Bruce blinked at him. “Mad about what?”
Clark stared at him expectantly. “The kiss.”
“Oh. No. Why would I be mad?”
“Because…” he trailed off, hand raised up only to be dropped with his shoulders. “Look, I just wanted to say that I was sorry, again.”
“I’m not,” he said, plain and honest. “It wasn’t like it was a bad kiss.”
Clark’s brows hitched up, widening his eyes. “Meaning…?”
It was risky to have kept this conversation going past a ‘Don’t worry about it’ but Bruce was feeling very daring all of the sudden, and curious, both in a way that had benefited him on cases.
“It was nothing to get mad at,” he said carefully. “I don’t get why you’re still worried about it.”
“Because I just laid one on you out of nowhere, and I didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk,” Clark said awkwardly.
“If that’s how what you do sober, I wonder what you do when you’re drunk.”
Even in the waning late afternoon light, Clark’s mid-face became visibly flushed, and he swallowed loudly. “We’ll never find out.”
“Because you think hard liquor smells funny?” Bruce joked, hoping to lighten the mood.
“There’s that, and the fact that I will be on my best behavior around you from now on.”
“But I don’t want that.” Bruce stepped closer in the rare effort to seek out eye contact. “I don’t want you to start acting like everyone else when the best part of being around you was how you make me feel.”
Shoulders hunched, chin towards his chest, Clark kept his face down but his eyes rolled up to meet his. “And how do I make you feel?”
“Normal?” he said, a little uncertain but not that worried about it. “Talking to people has always felt so burdensome, and so has just being around them, and I have to act if I don’t want to share my mood. I haven’t needed to do that with you, not anymore than anyone else would.”
“I thought we said you needed to learn how to act around others and that I would help?”
“Yes, others,” he said. “You’re not ‘others’, you’re my friend, and if you don’t want me to hold anything back so it wouldn’t fester, like you said last time, then I expect the same from you.”
Clark relaxed, mouth half-quirked up. “What if I make a huge misstep like that again?”
“You planning to use tongue next time?”
He didn’t quite know where that quip had come from, but the effect it had was instantaneous. Clark’s face burned redder than the sunset surrounding them.
“You expecting a ‘next time’?” Clark rasped, before clearing his throat.
Truth be told, he kind of was expecting it, but he still needed to be certain before he could urge Clark to try again, or make that leap himself.
Instead of a precise answer, he went for playing coy. “Maybe.”
Clark huffed out a slightly nervous laugh. “Meet you under the mistletoe in December then.”
That seemed to be the natural conclusion of the topic for now, and they got on the car, the mood far less tense than it had been on the way here.
Just as traffic had begun, it seemed like Dick had fallen asleep, leaving them and the playlist Clark had made for him to fill the silence.
Parked back before his building, Clark lingered with his hand on the open door, looking from him to Dick’s snoozing form in the backseat. “Think I’d rather not wake him just to say goodbye.”
“Probably not. It’s been a long day, and I’m definitely carrying him to bed once we get home,” Bruce agreed.
The idea seemed to please him, his eyes crinkling with fondness. “Won’t be long until he gets too big for that.”
“I’m stronger than I look, I could carry him if he was my height,” Bruce said, certain of that fact. “I bet I could carry you.”
“Mmm, I doubt that,” Clark said, playfully eyeing him up and down. “If anyone is getting thrown over someone’s shoulder it’s you.”
“I’m quite heavy.”
“I’ve had to lift cows that tipped over and arranged bales of hay since I was a kid, so, trust me, lifting you won’t be a hassle.” A humored gleam marked in his eyes, as if he were privy to a joke, or even a secret, Bruce had not been let in on. “Question is, where do I put you once I’ve picked you up?”
Flirting. He was flirting.
The idea that he had kissed Bruce out of misplaced emotion and mere proximity went back into the void it had come through, leaving him with the facts that Clark had previously flirted with him, mistaken their intimate conversations as interest on Bruce’s part, and then acted upon it. He’d also expressed the desire for a relationship in general, had at least more experience than Bruce with men, was very patient with him, understood him on a level that had taken Alfred years, and had not just been open to spending time with Bruce’s ward, he was great it. He’d gotten him a gift, unprompted.
This could be ideal for them both…unless the other half of him ruined it.
He just had to meet him as the Bat first, and see if telling him within the next year was viable. That, as well as Bruce figuring out if he could actually go through with the intimate parts of a romantic relationship with a man, was what needed to happen before he ruined this friendship.
“You tell me,” he said, trying to reflect that lighthearted, playful tone. “Where did you usually put the people you carry?”
“In a safe place.”
“What if the safest place is in your arms?”
Clark bit his lip and released it as a giddy smile broke out. “Then you can stay there as long as you want.”
Bruce found himself reflecting that expression. “Careful, I might never leave and you’ll have to drop me.”
“I’d never do that,” he said, suddenly quiet and intense. “Not if I can help it.”
Bruce’s mouth felt very dry now. “Can’t wait til December then.”
Clark shook his head as he chuckled, exiting the car. “See you next week?”
“Fourth of July, right?”
“I’m actually going to be in Gotham by midweek for a job, so maybe we can steal an hour or two for ourselves, if you want.”
“Text me when you’re there.”
Clark lousily saluted him and then waved as he shut the door.
Bruce waited until he’d disappeared into his building and then pulled out his phone, making a couple of hopefully discreet purchases before he could change his mind. He hadn’t read as deeply as he’d liked to in the scarily-vast market for masturbatory aids, but he had to start somewhere. He had to know if he could do more than what he’d dreamed about, and if he could do it in a way that satisfied them both.
They were home within the hour, with Bruce carrying Dick to his room, and then getting ready for patrol.
By the time he’d finished his uneventful shift and crashed in his room, he didn’t think too hard about what he’d gotten off to before sleep had claimed him.
Three things were dueling for front pages when he rose, and he got to spread each of the daily newspapers Alfred brought at breakfast and only one of them was expected.
The New York Times broke the story of a tall woman in full Grecian armor taking down a giant bull that had been rampaging through Washington, D.C. before swiftly disappearing. There was only the picture of her from the back, facing down the charging bull, a spear in one hand and a round shield in another, her blue cape billowing to the left to reveal her knee-high metallic boots.
The Daily Planet announced that Superman had saved the LuthorCorp Expo’s very own Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne from the mysterious dryad-esque Poison Ivy.
The Gotham Gazette, on the other hand, had prioritized the rare sighting of its local billionaire…and the identity of the ‘mystery man’ that had been captured with him on what appeared to be a ‘family day’.
They’d at least had enough sense to blur Dick’s face, otherwise Bruce would have sent Wayne Enterprises’ most bloodthirsty lawyer after them. He still could do that, but it would make him appear as if he’s hiding something, so, the best thing to do for now was to ignore it. After all, he had bigger issues to worry about than being the height of local gossip.
When he went to text Clark about it, namely as some lighthearted small-talk, possibly something they could tamely flirt over, he found that Kate had sent him a text.
It was a link to the Metropolis subreddit, the preview displaying a picture of him, Dick and Clark at the open-air mall, walking with Clark’s arm around his shoulder and Dick skipping as he held his hand, titled: Cryptid Spotted: Billionaire Bruce Wayne out and about with his ward and a friend.
So far, there were over ten-thousand comments and twenty-thousand likes.
He left his curiosity get the better of him to browse the most popular of the comments and, surprisingly, they were either jokes like ‘They’re standing in order of height’ , ‘Oh to be adopted by a billionaire…’ and ‘Love how Wayne is so committed to his style that he’s wearing black in this heat’ or they were well-meaning remarks such as ‘Love this for him!’ or ‘After what he and that kid have been through it’s nice to see them having some normal fun together!'
Then there were the gags like ‘I have to slog through dating apps for ages to find my happy ending, but like within like a few months of crawling out of his hole he’s got both a kid and a cute partner? Rude.’ and ‘Not commenting on the kid’s looks, but goddamn, you could tell me Wayne and his friend spawned him themselves and I’d believe you.’
There were debates and arguments about the ethics of posting an invasive picture of someone as private as him, of sharing what Dick looked like, of assuming what their relationship with Clark was as well as his sexuality.
Funnily enough, the comment that got the most back-and-forth arguing in its thread was the simple, pithy claim that he was ‘Putting the Bi in Billionaire!’
Did he though? His toys had yet to arrive and he hadn’t gotten around to actively testing his response to men in a sexual context, so, he couldn’t claim any identifiers until that was settled.
People had then gone on to theorize how they’d met, especially once someone identified Clark as ‘the Superman reporter’. Taking that fact into account led to quotes from their interview being highlighted and awarded and replies cooing over Clark’s descriptions of him, their so-called banter and dubbing this to be their meet-cute.
He had to shut the app once he’d processed what ‘Who do you think tops?’ meant. Most of the replies voting for Clark did not help stave off his burning flush.
Even though it had been from the angle of a hidden security camera, Bruce could tell that Clark was larger than average, and he had bought two toys in different sizes, one on the smaller side just to ease himself into it and one that he believed would be around Clark’s size.
Logically, he knew it would hurt either way, but the prospect that he could enjoy it enough to let another man get on top of him or even hold him down and use him for his pleasure…that could not be withstood until acclimatization like pain did. He might actually need to get drunk or high for that first experience of giving up control.
Which, once again, brought the question of what the fuck Lex Luthor was up to. How did a noted control freak and media-savvy tech guy like him decide that lowering Clark’s guard was worth getting fucked by someone leagues beneath him? More importantly, what did he have to do with Poison Ivy’s daytime debut?
Sure, someone else could have sicced her on Lex, a competitor or former employee, but the likelihood of Superman interfering had to be have been considered, as well as the exploitable surge of public concern and sympathy for his big day being ruined by a metahuman attack.
It could have been something to drive up fear about metas to sell more of his fancy new devices and weapons, or it could have specifically been an attempt to knock out Superman with her plants’ fumes, make him easy to capture and even experiment on. Or both.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the vibration of another text from Kate: So, I think it’s about time your family met your boys.
His boys.
Clark’s co-workers must have eaten him alive once this had hit their radar.
Bruce quickly tapped into their chat and sent: How was work today?
By the time he’d finished his coffee, Clark had replied:
Not fun.
But Perry put a stop to the invasive questions and gave me some light field-work so I could avoid the office.
You?
It was nice to know that even the vultures that worked in news media had some limits when it came to their employees.
Not sure how to make a lighthearted joke about this, he said: I’m so sorry. I forgot people found me that interesting and would get weird about seeing me in public.
Clark swiftly replied with a smiley face, followed by:
No, you didn’t.
But I appreciate the effort you made to humor us yesterday.
It couldn’t have been easy.
I wasn’t humoring you, I wanted to do it. I had a great time. We both did. We can’t wait to see you again.
Me too.
Lois says hi btw.
She also wants you to know that colors other than black exist and that you should try them out if you’re planning on going outside more this summer.
Why? So I can be nicer to look at in the next creepshots someone takes of us at a cafe?
My mom would say it’s so you don’t get heatstroke.
Lois says it’s because she knows you’ll be disgustingly sweaty under your designer suits.
An emoji sticking out its tongue followed that gag.
Bruce huffed out a quiet, internal chuckle and asked: Is she with you right now?
Clark sent him a selfie of them waving, with him clearly kneeling and hunching to compensate for their height difference.
Lois really was stunning, even with the unflattering angle and the distortion of the phone camera lens. He wondered if he’d be having these confusing thoughts about her if she’d been the one to interview him and Superman first, and if he’d be pursuing her, or even the thought of being with her, with far less reservation than he did with Clark.
After some brief consideration as he fondly examined Clark’s awkward stance, the clear cheapness of his dull grey suit, his geriatric taste in glasses and the messiness of his hair, almost as if he was making an effort to seem unattractive, he decided that the answer for him was no.
But it would be yes for someone else.
Speaking of which.
Ask Lois what she thinks about my cousin Kate.
She wants to meet you soon and I think she’d like to see her again as well.
Clark’s immediate reply was the eyes emoji. He guessed that meant he was curious.
After a minute of the typing bubble loading on the screen, Clark said:
She said she found her to be fun company and would like to do a story on her and her experience as a woman in the armed forces.
Think we should bring them along on 4th of July?
You don’t mind setting her up with someone else?
Why would I mind?
Because you have feelings for her.
Clark sent that wide-eyed flushing emoji from before.
I mean…
Just because she can’t be happy with me doesn’t mean I don’t want her to be happy with anyone else.
Most would not agree with you on that.
And I get why, but when I really like someone I can’t help but wanting the best for them.
Even if it hurts you?
Even then.
What was it like to be that nice? Not out of any concentrated effort, out of an inability to be petty and mean?
It did make Clark someone who would be easily targeted and exploited by those bold and harsh enough to do so. This made him all the more relieved that Lex had fucked up his efforts so swiftly. However, it did make him more conflicted about using their friendship for his own personal gain, be it as the Bat or as himself.
If he kissed him again, it had to be with certainty, because Clark did not deserve to be someone’s experiment.
So, we are bringing them along to Le Metropole then?
Yep.
You just reminded me!
I know it’s still a bit until Dick starts school but I was thinking he’d want to start making friends.
Friends who could sorta get what he’s going through.
I have a friend who just got custody of his nephew and he’s around Dick’s age. Kid’s been through the wringer the last year or so and need someone to talk to.
They live in Central City though so they’ll probably be mostly talking online.
But it’s better than nothing I guess?
Touched, Bruce looked away from his phone to watch Dick from across the table, eating with one hand and with the other holding open the book Clark had gotten him.
It might have been too early to thank any deities or fate for putting this man in their path, but it was starting to seem like it.
That would be great.
If they get on well I can fly the boy and his uncle over for a visit so they can spend time together.
Guess that’s giving me the okay to tell them who you guys are?
You can tell them whatever you want as long as it spares Dick from the loneliness I got used to.
I will need to do a background check first though.
I know.
I’ll hold off telling Barry until you do then.
Feeling relieved of some worry, Bruce then asked for his friend’s details and left Clark to get back to work with Lois, and he finally replied to Kate: How about we start with just you?
As if she’d been waiting by her phone with the messenger app open, Kate’s instant reply was the emoji of two clasped hands, shaking in agreement, followed by: Deal! When and where?
Why?
So I can dress appropriately for the time and place and make a great impression on my nephew and future cousin-in-law ofc
Dick is your cousin-once-removed not your nephew.
I consider you my baby brother ergo your kid is my nephew
Not how that works.
Notice how you’re not denying that you’re planning on marrying that Kent guy?
Normally, he’d roll his eyes at a jab like this, but this didn’t feel like a fun little exaggeration. It made his heartbeat speed up to a nervous pace, one he’d only gotten from unbound panic.
When he didn’t reply, Kate decided that now was the time to ask: Did I jumpstart your gay panic or smth?
He told her to piss off and ignored his phone for the rest of the day.
By nighttime, when he’d checked it just before he’d suited up for patrol, his notifications were not packed with algorithm alerts for Gotham’s goings-on and any sightings of Poison Ivy, but by links upon links shared by Kate. That picture of the three of them heading to the cinema had been blasted on every corner of the internet, spawning outrage, theories, jokes, investigations and debates.
The thought of being the lightning rod for that much focus and the scrutiny that came with it filled him with instant, draining exhaustion. It was bad enough that his parents’ deaths were still popular among True Crime fans and conspiracy theorists.
Not having the time to get sucked into this mess, he just hoped the news cycle would swallow it up within the next forty-eight hours and headed out in search of Poison Ivy’s rumored base, or at least where she met her buyers and dealers, just so he could exert some energy knocking someone about until they loosened their tongues.
Traveling light, he took the motorcycle and zipped through the streets, entering the more densely-packed, polluted, cluttered subsection of Downtown Gotham until he reached the redbrick building his security feeds had spotted the figure of a woman dressed in the exact same conspicuous disguise Ivy had worn at the expo.
The pavements were lined with cars, some too well-kept and expensive for this part of town, belonging to men who had made their money and reputation by being ruthless, if not the heads of operations. Possibly even the underlings left behind to fight for control in the power vacuum left by Carmine Falcone.
He lurked around the block, taking in the eerie quiet, watching the smog gather as the temperature dropped further, even in the tail-end of June, aided by the stifling humidity.
Just as he’d climbed to the roof to get a vantage point, he heard the sounds of struggle.
Grappling gun in hand, he rushed to the left-side ledge and peered over it. What he found wasn’t a deal gone wrong or squabble between competitors, it was three men rounded on a fourth, with the leader raising a gun to the man he had pinned to the building wall.
“I’m going to ask one last time. How did find out about this?” the armed man yelled, enraged.
“I told you! I don’t know anything and this is all a big misunderstanding,” replied the cornered man, oddly not panicking, not breaking down and begging for his life when the barrel of the gun was inches away from his face.
“And we’re supposed to believe that you just walked into this side of town, looking like you do, and
“And how do I look exactly?” asked the cornered man, carelessly bold.
“Too clean to be involved in any of this and too broke to have been invited, so, either you’re here to spy on us or this is some act to distract us from what’s really going on.”
“Which would be?”
“Some kinda fucking ambush by the police, that you cut a deal with the green bitch to lure us all here and take us in!”
“What can I do to prove I’m not what you think I am?”
The leader pressed the gun to his forehead. “Depends on what happens between now and when I pull the trigger.”
That was his cue to fling a batarang down at one of his henchmen, startling the one in charge into distraction but not in a way that could make him accidentally shoot his captive. When he had turned away from the pinned man enough to turn the angle of his gun, Bruce flung another batarang down to slice the hand holding it before dropping down onto them, feet-first into the captor’s agonized face.
The darkness of the alleyway added to the effect of his entrance, and to the frazzled reactions of the remaining upright henchmen, who watched with visceral terror as the dark, sharp-edged, caped form of the Bat straightened up before him.
It took him a second too long to whip out his own gun, Bruce was already on him, pinning him by the throat to the wall and snapping the arm in his grasp until the henchman howled with agony and dropped his weapon. Bruce slammed his skull against the wall hard enough to hear a crack and released him to join the other two, out cold on the ground.
He hadn’t necessarily needed to maim them all this efficiently, but being witnessing someone get threatened in an alleyway by a lowlife with a handgun unleashed the rage inside him in a way that had him fighting to keep the flashbacks at bay.
As he turned to leave, he was struck by two jarring facts about the man he’d just saved. First, he hadn’t fled in the moments he’d spared him, and second, he was the last person he’d expected to find tonight.
“It’s you,” Clark breathed, leaning off the wall to reach out for him. “I knew I’d find you.”
Notes:
After 80K, 3 out of 4 Love Square pairings have finally met!
How do we think Superman and Batman's first meeting is going to go?
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