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“Oh, come on, B, it’s a fact of our relationship that I like you more than you like me.”
They were standing on a rooftop, diplomatically close to the border of their cities. The sun was setting over Clark’s shoulder, the mythical backlighting making it hard for Bruce to pick out the expression on his face.
Bruce didn’t remember the context—a jab about his contingency plans, maybe, but it didn’t matter. The words stuck in his head, though, because it had been such an odd thing for Superman to say. Laced with a kind of soft self-deprecation that clashed terribly with the bright colors of his costume.
Bruce disagreed, of course he did. It might have been true in the early days of their relationship—Clark had certainly trusted Batman faster than Bruce trusted Superman, if trusting could be considered the same thing as liking—but it certainly isn’t true now. It wasn’t true then, on the rooftops in the sunset.
But it was the kind of thing they left unsaid. So Bruce just smirked at Superman and watched him fly back to Metropolis.
They’d been on the League together for a matter of mere months when the rumors started. No, that wasn’t strictly true—there had always been rumors, but they’d never coalesced into actual art before. For all the time Bruce spent with his ear pressed to the dirt of the Gotham rumor mill, it was actually Clark who found them first.
He sent them through the secure, non-emergency League comm lines. Bruce had half a mind to argue about that, but from a secret-identity standpoint, he really didn’t want Metropolis reporter Clark Kent sending fanart of Batman and Superman making out on a rooftop to Bruce Wayne’s personal or business phone.
It took a moment for Bruce to puzzle out why Clark sent them—why he kept sending them, every few days until whatever event first sparked the interest in “superbat” died down, and then once every few weeks. It obviously wasn’t a threat; even if Bruce would be paranoid about it, Clark wouldn’t be. No, Clark found it funny.
Some of it was even good art.
Bruce didn’t know what they were seeing. They all seemed awfully fond of one specific interview where a reporter asked Superman if he was seeing anyone and his eyes appeared to flick briefly towards Batman before he answered. They all seemed awfully fond of that clip of the Batplane getting blown up and Batman dropping out of it, only to be swept up into a bridal carry by Superman seconds later. They all seemed awfully fond of that clip of Superman going down, getting hit by a Kryptonite bullet, and Batman racing to his side. It was nothing that couldn’t be explained away by friendship and camaraderie.
The more he watched, though, the more he started to understand. Superman was the only League member who was regularly, casually tactile with Batman—a hand on the shoulder, or fingers just barely brushing against his when they were standing in front of a crowd. Clark was just, simply, one of the most tactile people Bruce had ever met, and he wasn’t afraid of Batman like some of the other League members still were.
It was never sexual—Bruce would know if Clark was flirting—but he supposed he couldn’t technically claim that the superbat shippers on Clark’s twitter feed were reading into nothing.
Bruce kept an eye on it, regardless. It wasn’t exactly something he could ignore, especially when Hal made comments like just tell your boyfriend that he’s a good boy so he can stop with the puppy-dog eyes during mission debriefings. Clark had choked on nothing and turned as red as his cape. Bruce had spent the next five minutes dissecting Green Lantern’s mistakes.
(Clark had actually done very well. It was the kind of thing they normally left unsaid, but that day, Bruce caught Clark before he left and said something to that effect—good work, Clark. Clark beamed at him for it.)
It even came in handy, once. It gave Bruce the idea to bring Clark along on an investigation as Bruce Wayne’s latest piece of arm candy. He’d been going over notes for the mission, and everything Clark’s part entailed, in the car on the way over.
Clark had laughed like he thought Bruce was nervous. “You don’t need to coach me on how to pretend to be in love with you,” he said softly, teasingly.
Something in his mind, Bruce remembered—or only thought he remembered, in the sharp light of hindsight—alighted on that. Clark’s phrasing, his tone of voice, all reminiscent of another little mystery from years ago. If he hadn’t been so focused on the mission in front of him, the pieces might’ve clicked then.
“I know this isn’t what you expected when I asked you for help,” Bruce said.
“No,” Clark agreed, a wry smile on his face. “To be honest, I would’ve thought Superman would be the better match.”
“Superman’s too high-profile,” Bruce pointed out. “And everyone knows Superman has super-hearing.”
Clark did a good job, not that that was surprising. He was strangely charming, playing up the bumbling aspect of his civilian persona in a way that seemed to endear the Gotham elites Bruce surrounded himself with. Bruce didn’t think anyone left with any doubt that Clark Kent might’ve genuinely interested Bruce Wayne for a few weeks.
He did wonder why, given Clark’s general willingness to go along with the plan from the outset, he didn’t let Bruce kiss him. It was a slight, subtle thing—Clark turning his cheek ever-so-slightly so that Bruce’s lips hit the very edge of his mouth. Then again, Clark hadn’t grown up in the same environment Bruce had, with the papers speculating every girl he touched was another hookup pregnant with a baby Wayne. But, still, Clark had let pretending-to-be-half-drunk-Bruce feel him up like a short-term, high-libido boyfriend would, so Bruce didn’t have any room to complain. It was Clark’s business.
(He didn’t understand it then. He does now. He gets everything now. He—he wishes, more than everything, that Clark had gotten what he’d really wanted, that night, when he didn’t let drunk Bruce Wayne kiss him, because maybe then, maybe—)
It became not-just-Clark’s business astonishingly quickly after that.
A sorceress was wrecking havoc in Keystone City. Flash, Superman, and Batman had gotten to the scene first, with their primary objective being to clear the area of bystanders and keep her occupied until more of the League showed up. She’d hit Barry with some kind of love spell, and he’d gotten the jump on Bruce, knocking him to the ground so the sorceress could line up her next spell.
Clark, apparently, wasn’t going to let that happen, though. He’d tackled her, sending them both sprawling. Flash moved in, but Clark was just as fast, sending him sprawling. Bruce got to his feet, batarang in hand, ready to throw.
The sorceress saw them, side by side, and laughed. Bruce felt his body freezing beyond his control, the force of her spell lifting him off of his feet.
Clark froze. His eyes began to burn red. “Let him go.”
The sorceress’s laugh was cold and mocking. “Oh, you are in love with him. Isn’t that sweet?”
Bruce couldn’t even twitch his fingers. His eyes darted around, scanning the skyline. If Clark stalled, just a little while longer, the rest of the League would arrive before the sorceress could tag all three of them. He forced himself to stay calm, regulate his heartbeat, knowing damn well Clark would hear any hint of panic in it.
“I could help you with that, you know,” the sorcerer said, and it took Bruce a minute to register what was happening. She really believed Clark was in love witb him. “We both know he’d never feel anything for you otherwise.”
Clark’s hand was curled into a fist. “If you think I’d agree to that, you don’t know me very well.”
The fight was finished shortly after, with Diana swooping in as reinforcements. The debrief was short. Clark didn’t look him in the eyes. That was how Bruce realized, finally, that what the sorceress said had been true.
Clark didn’t let the tension sit, though, of course he didn’t. Ten minutes after the debrief broke up, he was hovering in the doorway of Bruce’s quarters, like he was afraid Bruce would pull out the Kryptonite if he crossed the threshold without permission. Bruce was the one who made the mistake of looking up, acknowledging his presence.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Bruce said immediately.
Clark almost laughed. “No, I—I think we should. I wouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry it came up.”
“I know.”
“I know you don’t...reciprocate. I value our friendship, and I don’t want this to change anything.”
“I know.”
“Between us, personally, or with the—”
“Clark,” Bruce said sharply. Clark’s eyes darted up to meet his. The words dried in his mouth. How could he have missed this? The way Clark looked at him?
You don’t need to coach me on how to be in love with you. The world’s greatest detective was a goddamn idiot. Clark probably assumed he’d known for years, had just been avoiding the subject as to not strain their relationship or to keep him as a little lovesick ace up the sleeve if Bruce ever needed a willing being of godlike power.
“I forgive you.”
It worked. The tension in Clark’s body seemed to ease, and Bruce almost felt smug as Clark huffed a laugh.
“Thanks,” he replied wryly, but Bruce could see the truth in it. “I’ll see you tomorrow for monitor duty?”
Bruce just nodded, and Clark just left.
They didn’t talk about it again. They didn’t need to. Clark was true to his word; he didn’t let it affect the League. Everyone knew, that much was obvious, but no one mentioned it and Bruce didn’t ask Clark to fake date him again and Clark didn’t send any more twitter fanart.
(He still caught Clark looking sometimes, though. Sometimes sad. Sometimes pissed off. Usually just fond, or that puppy-dog-eyes expression Hal had once so eloquently described. It hurt, in a way, that made Bruce want to block it out. He did block it out. He hasn’t noticed it for years. Does that mean he’d stopped? Does Bruce dare to believe he’s suddenly become unobservant?)
(No. It’s better if Clark had stopped. Bruce was—is—an asshole. Clark deserves so much more.)
It was an odd fact of life. It wandered through Bruce’s mind every time they were at a gala together, Bruce in his best-fitting suit, trying to sit through endless flattery with whatever injuries he’d sustained on patrol the night before. Clark’s eyes never lingered on him during galas like everyone else’s did, even when no one would have blamed him, or even cared—but they always softened, just a little, when they made eye contact from across the ballroom.
Bruce understood, now, why Clark didn’t kiss him that night. Bruce Wayne had never been the object of his affections.
“How did you know?”
It was about a year after the incident with the sorceress. Bruce was fairly certain the rest of the League had completely forgotten about it, but not them.
“Know what?”
“That you had feelings for me.”
He couldn’t have described where the curiosity came from, except that Ivy had recently been perfecting a new version of her kiss. He didn’t even think it was a question Clark would answer. Based on his observations, it wasn’t like he’d made Clark fall out of love with him.
But Clark did. He took a deep breath, like he was trying to give Bruce the best answer.
“It was slow,” Clark started. His hand was curled around a coffee mug. “I think I always knew.” With a laugh, he added, “Lois used to joke that Bruce Wayne was Batman because he was the only other Gotham guy I gave the time of day to.”
“She’s smart.” He’d met Lois a handful of times; Clark could do a lot worse.
“I’ll tell her you said that.” Clark cleared his throat. “But, uh, to answer your question...I had a space mission for Hal that I was doing, a couple of years ago. I felt weird the whole time, though, like I was missing something big. It wasn’t until I got back into the atmosphere that I realized I hadn’t been able to hear your heartbeat out there. That’s when I knew—that it wasn’t going anywhere, anyway.”
“Hn.” Your feelings or my heartbeat?
(Bruce doesn’t know when the mission with Hal took place. He doesn’t know how long Clark has had his heartbeat memorized for. Just that there was one time, early on, when a shapeshifter tried to impersonate him, and Clark recognized it immediately.)
(Do you think I don’t know you?)
(Bruce thinks Clark does. Bruce thinks that’s the problem. Bruce doesn’t know how Clark managed to look past all of that, the first time around. He doesn’t know how to make Clark do it again.)
People speculated. Superman laughed when one reporter, during one particularly warm and sunny June afternoon, asked if the rumors about him and Batman were true.
People still made fanart. Bruce wondered if Clark was still following the tag on his social media.
Clark still had his heartbeat memorized. Bruce doubted he would forget it, but he wondered if Clark still listened to it. If he worried when it changed because it meant Bruce was in trouble.
They ran into other shapeshifters, other people capable of possessing the League, controlling their minds and actions. There was one that Bruce hated far more than the others.
He shouldn’t have even let that creature get the drop on him in the first place. He remembered having to fight back to consciousness, the frantic helplessness that came after when he could only see through his own eyes at what was happening.
The thing had clearly been intent on taking the League down from the inside out. Sabotaging the computer systems. Manipulating some of the members into fighting with each other with a couple of well-placed statements. And then there was Clark.
“We should get dinner sometime.” Bruce’s voice, tinged with a hint of flirtiness that was too subtle for Wayne and too bold to be Batman, was nauseating.
Clark blinked. A pink flush flared across his cheeks. “Oh. You mean…”
Bruce didn’t know how long the thing inside of him had been working on this. He hated it. Every ounce of his self-control was being spent trying to keep his own hand from drifting closer to where Clark’s rested on the table.
“I think it’s time we get to know each other a little better.”
“Sure,” Clark said. “Yes, I—I think that’ll be nice. Why don’t you come over tonight? I’ll cook.”
Bruce came prepared. So did Clark, apparently—waiting until Bruce leaned in for the kiss on his couch, pinning him and robbing him of the lead-lined box in his pocket. Diana showed up seconds later, her lasso tight around Bruce’s midsection.
Bruce almost wanted to congratulate Clark for his handling of it. Even Bruce had been a little caught-off guard by the flip. Clark seemed more preoccupied with apologizing.
“I know you don’t—”
“We’ve done this already,” Bruce reminded him dryly. I forgive you.
“I touched you, without permission.” Clark said like it was a confession. Bruce thought of the kiss, the brief press of lips to his cheek when he’d arrived, flowers in hand. “I’m sorry for that. I wouldn’t have, but I thought it would be better if I played along.”
(Contrary to popular belief, Bruce doesn’t mind being wrong, if there are no bad consequences. Bruce was wrong about why Clark never kissed him that night, the first time they fake-dated. Clark liked Bruce Wayne, he’d said so himself, that night on monitor duty—it’s the feeling of taking advantage that he hates.)
“You did what you had to do.” He was Bruce Wayne; people touched him all the way, in far more sexual ways. The thing inside him was far more violating than Clark gently laying his hand over Bruce’s on the table. “It’s fine, Clark.”
Clark wasn’t blushing quite as much as he had been when the thing inside Bruce invited him to dinner. He made to leave, and the words tumbled out of Bruce’s mouth unbidden.
“It wasn’t following my plan.”
“No, your plan would’ve worked,” Clark joked, turning back to face him with a Superman-worthy smile in place.
“I’m serious,” Bruce said, meeting Clark’s eyes again. “My contingency plans for the League…that’s not what it was using.”
The creature could read Bruce’s thoughts to some extent. It laughed, cold and delighted, at Bruce’s response to him threatening Alfred, the Bats, Clark. But the plan was its own; Bruce wasn't the one orchestrating Clark's downfall at his own wanting hands.
Something odd passed over Clark’s face, almost like a smile, and Bruce knew he understood. In another time, with puppy-dog eyes, Clark might've even been the one to bring it up first.
Clark’s feelings had never been a factor in Bruce’s contingency plans—but that wasn’t entirely true, Bruce realized. No, he didn’t have any contingency plans that relied on him seducing Clark; there was too high of a chance it wouldn’t work, between Clark’s feelings inevitably fading over time or his mind being compromised by some other force.
But it showed up in other ways, in other plans: knowing he could ask Clark for help if he ever really needed to. Knowing Clark would hear him. Knowing Clark would trust him, believe him, want to help—even if the evidence was against him.
(It’s a fact of our relationship that I like you more than you like me. A fact. Bruce still believes it’s true that Clark would help him, with anything. They are still friends; Bruce trusts that as much as he trusts the sun rising in the morning. It’s Bruce’s fault that Clark underestimates how much Bruce would be willing to do for him.)
It went without saying, but the next time Bruce was invited to Clark’s apartment, any evidence of the flowers he’d given Clark that day was long gone.
“I need a favor.”
It was five years after the incident with the sorceress, two since I thought it’d be better if I played along. They were in Metropolis, at a small diner Clark liked to get lunch at.
“That bad, huh?” Clark joked. He took another bite of his sandwich.
“You don’t have to say yes.”
“Oh. That bad.”
Clark always knew he could say no, whenever Bruce asked for something. He didn’t. This time, though, Bruce would not be surprised, or hold it against him, if he did.
“Do you remember, a few years ago, when I asked you to accompany me to a gala?”
Clark paused. Swallowed. “I remember. Are we doing that again?”
We. “I’ll forward you the details later tonight.”
Bruce brought sunflowers and one of his best-fitting suits.
“You look nice,” Clark said.
“So do you.” Bruce meant it; somehow, the cheap suit Clark wasn’t wearing didn’t fit nearly as poorly as Bruce remembered. His loose sleeves were working hard to cover up the biceps underneath. “These are for you.”
“Thank you.” Clark beamed at him before disappearing back into his apartment to fill a vase for them.
Clark was just as good at pretending to be Bruce’s date as he was the first time around. Bruce was far more conscious of how his touch lingered, waiting for the moment Clark turned away again, but if anything, Clark seemed to lean into it.
Clark even kissed him this time.
They were followed out of the gala. Clark heard it; Bruce could feel it. Bruce knew the streets of Gotham like the back of his hand—he took the lead, pulling Clark into a dead-end alley and pushing him up against the wall.
Bruce Wayne’s normal strategy for getting people off his back was to get caught hooking up in a closet. Let them think the only reason they might've been anywhere near an office tonight was finding a quiet place to hookup. Let them assume they made a mistake in who they followed and circle back.
He caught Clark’s gaze in the low yellow light of the alley, looking for an answer. Clark gave the tiniest hint of a nod, and then his lips were on Bruce’s, his hands on Bruce’s body.
It was a good kiss—sweet in a way that it shouldn’t have been, but maybe that was just the cocktail Clark had been slowly sipping throughout the night. Clark whispered the all-clear in his ear, and Bruce pulled back, still trapping Clark up against the wall.
“He’s gone?” Bruce confirmed. Unnecessary, but he needed to say something. His eyes darted down to Clark’s lips of their own accord.
“Yeah. Do you always do that to shake a tail?”
“Sometimes.” The image came to mind unbidden: Batman pulling Superman into an alley somewhere, pulling him in for a searing kiss that rivalled the fanart.
“What happens now?”
“Alfred can drop you off.” Bruce swallowed. “Or you could come back to the Manor.” He didn’t know why he was offering, other than the fact that it would sell the story more. Not that selling it mattered; this was a one-time deal, it wasn’t like he was keeping Clark as his fake boyfriend on call.
“I’ll take a raincheck,” Clark said. “Let me know when he’s planning on baking next.”
Bruce shifted, and Clark stepped off the wall. They walked to the mouth of the alley together, fingers barely brushing.
Clark came by the Manor for dinner. Alfred made cookies.
He flew back to Metropolis after a nightcap. Bruce stayed in the living room for a long time, nursing his drink. His brain was refusing to settle down, mind spinning out about something he couldn’t quite place.
His thoughts, for some reason, kept drifting back to Clark.
That’s when I knew—that it wasn’t going anywhere, anyway. Had he said “was” or “is”? Was as in...Clark didn’t think it would go away, but it had now?
Bruce had asked how Clark knew, but he’d never asked why. He didn’t need to know. Maybe he should’ve. Maybe it meant something, now, that Clark had kissed him, warm and sweet, in that darkened alley—maybe it meant that the kiss didn’t mean anything to Clark. Whatever spell Bruce had cast had worn off, the rosy filter removed from his actions and his worst traits.
It should be a good thing. Clark deserved a lot better than him.
Bruce hated feeling like this—like he was missing something so obvious.
It’s four days after Clark insisted on returning the favor of Bruce having him over for dinner. Three weeks since Clark kissed him in the alley. Two years since I thought it’d be better if I played along. Five years since I don’t want this to change anything. Over a decade since I guess you must be Batman.
Clark is standing in the kitchen, pulling something out of the oven. He smiles over his shoulder at Bruce when he enters, and Bruce just...stops. Stares. Feels like he’s been smashed into the ground so hard that the air’s been knocked out of his lungs.
He wants Clark to kiss him again—not for any mission, just because he wants to, welcoming Bruce back to where he belongs. He wants to bring Clark more flowers. He wants Clark to smile at him before rifling around his cabinets for another vase. The sunflowers—he brought goddamn sunflowers, he’s been an idiot for so long—are still sitting on the table, their backs turned to Clark as if he isn’t the brightest thing in the room.
He doesn’t want to invite Clark over for dinner because he wants Clark to drop in anytime he wants to. He wants to fall asleep beside Clark and wake up tangled with him the next morning. He wants…God, he wants so much, his chest aching with it. He doesn’t understand how Clark managed to choke it down for so many years, if it felt like this.
For all of his training, Bruce isn’t sure if he can.
It flashes through his mind, all the times he let Clark slip through his fingers. The longing glances, the lingering touches, the way Clark would smile at him like he hung the sun in the sky. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve it, he never has, but he hasn’t seen it in so long.
“Am I too late?” The words might as well be barbed.
“No, you’re right on time,” Clark says brightly, setting the casserole dish down on the stovetop. He shifts in the kitchen, opening and shutting cabinets, and Bruce wants to know every inch of this place, curl up inside Clark’s mind until he understands every thought that went into the organization of how this apartment is set up. How Clark would want to set up a kitchen that belongs to both of them.
“Clark. Are you still in love with me?”
Clark looks up so sharply that he hits his head on the cabinet door. It slams shut with a resonating crack, but Clark doesn’t seem to notice, eyes wide and locked on Bruce. Bruce is frozen in place by the attention, a butterfly with wings spread on Clark’s corkboard.
Bruce can’t tell which of them is more caught off-guard.
“What?”
He opens his mouth, thoughts racing too quickly to be able to anticipate what’s going to come out. “I don’t think it’s a true fact about our relationship that you like me more than I like you.”
Based on his expression, it takes Clark a second to place the line, the context. So Clark hadn’t been turning it over in his mind like a screensaver all this time.
Bruce wets his lips. He keeps going. “I didn’t see it before. I’m sorry. We could’ve—” he swallows. He never asked Clark why. Maybe he should’ve—he’d be better prepared now, could start making up plans on how to do it again. “I don’t know how to do this, but I want to, Clark. If it’s still an option.”
He hates how pathetic he sounds, pouring his heart out on the hardwood floor and still not able to say the goddamn words. But deep down, Bruce knows he’d go lower. He’d beg.
Clark is leaning up against the kitchen counter, taking Bruce in. Deciding how to reply.
“You’re my best friend, Bruce.” With a knowing smile, Clark says, “I don’t give up on my friends.”
Bruce might’ve rolled his eyes at the unbearable Clark-ness of it all if he wasn’t so busy crossing Clark’s apartment to finally bring them together. Clark kisses him eagerly, like a man starving for it, and Bruce tugs Clark into him like he thinks Clark will disintegrate the second he lets go.
Clark isn’t going anywhere.
Bruce’s name in his phone is just a yellow heart. Bruce sees it one night when they’re lounging on Clark’s couch together, after he sends Clark a piece of fanart of Batman and Superman kissing sweetly on a rooftop.
There will be a day, Bruce is sure, when Clark wheedles him into letting his guard down, just a little, and Superman and Batman will get caught for real on a rooftop somewhere, lips or fingers intertwined; some people—twitter users—will be ridiculously overjoyed by the news. Bruce thinks he might just be one of them.
“How long?” Clark asks, and really, it’s only fair.
His head is in Bruce’s lap. Bruce gently plays with his hair while Clark looks up at him, his book long forgotten.
Bruce almost wishes he had something sappy to share with him. Always, maybe—or from the moment I knew I had a chance.
Instead, he jerks his sleeve to reveal his watch and says, “Five days, nineteen hours, and eleven minutes.”
Clark huffs. “I should’ve made you stew longer.”
Bruce’s hand settles back into Clark’s dark curls. “Please. You waited long enough.”
“Mm.” Clark leans up, kissing Bruce softly, letting his lips linger. Bruce doesn’t think he’ll ever get over how intoxicating it is, being able to kiss Clark whenever he wants to, just because he wants to. “Worth it, though.”
Bruce agrees, of course he does.