Chapter Text
It was supposed to be a joke, really.
A small one. A private one.
No recorders. No notepads. Just two old friends, post-breakup, post-fury, comfortably talking about Metropolis zoning laws and which intern at the Daily Planet had somehow managed to break the copier again .
But with Lois Lane, even her throwaway comments had teeth.
They’d been catching up, and Clark, in a moment of complete lapse in judgment, had said:
“Cant believe he just walked away from your interview like that. Bruce Wayne is... well, he’s charming. In that ‘this should be illegal’ sort of way. But he’s all champagne and chaos. I can imagine that dating him would-, NOT THAT I WANT THAT — is like trying to date a firework.”
Lois had raised an eyebrow, already filing that conversation away for later.
He hadn’t thought much of it again. Until the interview.
It was only a brief segment. A fluff piece about Superman's latest rescue streak and Clark sat on his couch with a small upturn of his lips. The host asked a standard question: “Do you think someone like Superman could ever find someone who really gets him?” and Lois smiled.
That smile. A press-honed weapon.
“Well,” she said, leaning back just slightly, “he does seem to admire people who don’t scare easy. Maybe someone with more suits than sense.”
It could've sounded lighthearted to anyone else but Clark still picked up on the underlying resentment, and shame for said resentment.
The host laughed. “Is that a clue?”
“Oh no,” she said, eyes dancing. “Just a guess. Maybe someone with a private jet, to fly next to him, and a reckless smile but we've never really had an opportunity to talk about stuff like that-...”
That was it. That was all she said.
And within twenty-four hours, the internet had lost its collective mind.
The theory threads were fast and furious. The fanart was borderline unsettling. Someone found an old charity gala photo with Superman and Bruce Wayne in the same frame , not even next to each other, and the grainy distant image was immediately declared ‘undeniable proof of mutual longing.’
The hashtags ‘Silk & Steel’ and ‘Bruceman’ started trending (not that Clark was obsessively and red faced refreshing twitter every few seconds to know). Superman, stoic and incorruptible; Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s silk-tongued billionaire peacock. It was absurd. It was everywhere.
He had the sudden thought that his life was a mean girls movie and his diary had been photocopied and hung up all over town.
Clark Kent sat down, trying not to have an existential crisis while his inbox pinged repeatedly.
Jimmy Olsen:
hey uh
do we need to make a “congrats on your fake boyfriend” cake or what
Lois Lane:
Clark, I’m so sorry.. Call me?
He rubbed his temples and stared at the Gotham Post front page headline:
“IS THE MAN OF STEEL SWEPT OFF HIS FEET?”
Exclusive speculation inside: Is Gotham’s golden boy hiding a SUPER-secret romance?
Clark groaned and let his head fall down onto his kitchen table, effectively leaving a crack in the wood. Could this day get any worse?