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Guy was away for some mandatory Green Lantern Corp business meeting. Hawkgirl and Mr. Terrific could handle this low level intergalactic winged creature without him, but some weird feeling overtook Clark that he should be out there helping. So here he is, out here and helping.
Clark dodged one of the wings that swung his way, swooshing through the air underneath it. His ears pick up on a heartbeat that causes his head to swing in the general direction. Batman’s heartbeat. Not far away where Gotham is: close. Here in Metropolis close.
That distraction almost gets him punched through the air before his reflexes kick into place last second, throwing his hands up to side to catch the giant fist. Still though, his focus isn’t on the fight anymore, he just keeps going through the motions of it. There was enough going on in Gotham, why would Batman feel the need to come over here? Did he know something Clark didn’t about something sketchy happening?
Adrenaline bubbling inside of him from excitement, Clark turned and swooped up into the higher air as Hawkgirl’s hammer smacked into the threat. His eyes darted around, trying to zero in throughout all the noises happening on where exactly he was. Quite a few people packed together from below to try and get a glimpse of the in-flight fight at hand. It was surely coming from down below, not off to the side.
He pauses for a moment to shut his eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to block out every other noise. Clark had gotten better at this, way better than when he was a child and couldn’t handle all the sensory input he picked up against his own wish to. That was a living nightmare for him and more so for Ma and Pa, he still thinks and feels guilt for when he remembers.
A few seconds later his eyes are open, looking at a small bunched in crowd of people, actually, the biggest one. His eyebrows quirk near opposite directions in confusion, not seeing the Batman suit. Surely people would be reacting more and not shoulder to shoulder with him, which could only mean-
His head whips to the side when he hears people screaming, the flying creature they were fighting knocked out and falling limp. Before Clark can move more than a flinch, Mr. Terrific is already using his T-Spheres to catch the creature before it can land on any of the bystanders.
“Mission accomplished,” he says in his signature monotone voice over the speakers of his floating… Sphere chair? Clark hasn’t got the exact name of that yet and he’s a little too scared to ask at this point incase it's as stupid of a question as he feels it is. It could just be a chair. A ship. Chair-ship.
The crowd cheers for them all, Hawkgirl smiling bright and waving to the people, wings seeming to flutter from their accomplishment.
Clark gives a solid ‘well done’ nod their way, but his attention goes back to his other concern. As they all float back down, his own heartbeat starts to quicken. He lingers in the air a bit, above the crowd to get a location of Batman’s whereabouts. He’s moved, already. Clark’s lips purse together.
Glancing down to the small crowd forming around him, he’s conflicted for a moment, but gives a warm smile to the people.
“You all have a lovely night. Stay safe!” he projects his voice out from his chest, giving a wave before he speedily flies in the direction of the heartbeat his ears are compassing him toward.
It’s suddenly strongest back behind a pizza shop — one that’s underrated to the point Clark Kent did a mini piece in the Daily Planet about it once — so he follows his ears there. He’s met with the sight of someone wearing a helmet, reviving up the motorcycle they’re sitting on. Clark’s head tilts, squinting his eyes a little.
The person, or rather, the man’s head tilts up too. Clark can't see it due to the helmet, but there’s no doubt he’s also looking up at him. Bright blue, red cape and floating above the buildings can’t exactly be hidden even in the nighttime. The heartbeat skips for a moment, the engine roaring up loudly before driving off.
Conflict rises in Clark, to follow or to not follow. He knows the choice that feels right to him; the one that wouldn’t put him at risk of ruining whatever camaraderie he’s built up with the man who goes around dressing like a bat to try and protect his city. If he hadn’t already by following him out the way he did. Clark watches as the motorcycle disappears off into the distance, growing smaller and smaller.
He smiles to himself, though not doing any decent job at hiding it if anybody was around, and turns to fly home on this good mood.
Later back at his own place, Clark starts to wonder how many times he’s missed the Batman coming into Metropolis before his ears thought to pick his heartbeat out of a crowd. Did he have connections here? Was he here on some secret business and that’s why he was dressed like that? Who even was he in his everyday life? Thought after thought, question after question popped into his head until he fell asleep in bed during the process of it.
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It’s been a few weeks and Clark is convinced he screwed up big time like he originally feared for a moment. It was the first time he noticed Batman’s heartbeat since getting used to it, sure. There was also no reason for Batman to be in Metropolis again, to his knowledge. Those facts helped but didn’t completely simmer Clark’s anxiety and curiosity over the matter.
He tosses and turns all night, letting a long groan out after flopping down into his stomach and trying to find a comfortable position to place his head on the pillow without smothering himself. It wouldn’t exactly smother him, but it was still very uncomfortable pushing your face in a pillow and struggling for airflow, even in his condition.
Clark lays there, unable to get his mind off Batman. Batman. This guy who acts like he dreads giving Clark any time the few times they’ve seen each other. He can’t help being interested. What seemingly human man would feel the need to go around in armor, gear and try helping Gotham on his own? That’s not right, he does have one of the police guys backing him. Gordon. What’s his deal? Having officials back superheroes like the… whatever those three are going by, that’s expected for Clark. But a vigilante with no powers? It was strange, wildly intriguing.
The voice and jawline didn’t help. Nor the way Clark has seen him be able to knock someone out with just some fighting combos, even if the approach was questionable in nature the one time he saw it up close in action.
No, Clark, get yourself together! Another groan of annoyance at his lack of falling asleep, or himself, or both.
Eventually, he ends up getting up and swinging his legs over the edge of his bed. His hands rub over his face, patting it before looking up and around the mostly bare room. Getting up, he walks out into the kitchen of his apartment, rummaging through one of the cabinets. His hand finds the basket he keeps an assortment of teas in, slipping it out to ponder over which he’s in the mood for. None of them have any effect on him; the caffeinated ones don’t wake him up, the relaxing sleepy time herbals don’t make him tired. It doesn’t stop him from enjoying the taste and smell either way.
He decides on peppermint, popping his kettle on the stove to heat. Clark leans back against the counter and crosses his arms. His mind wonders to what Batman is doing, if he’s out fighting whatever crime he’s gotten himself in the middle of, or if he’s sleeping unlike what Clark’s doing right now. Shaking his head in attempts of shaking the Bat out of his thoughts, he glances over to his living room, to the big full windows he’s kept open to the city below.
He’s certain that Batman isn’t thinking of him this hard, if even ever at all, which makes a pit grow inside his stomach. Tomorrow’s a new day, he just has to make it through whatever this night has in store for him, sitting awake or not.
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It takes a ‘breezy’ one hour to find a driver that will take him over to Gotham. He’s tired of tapping his toes on the ground and waiting around. If Batman is around and not making himself known, it’s a no-brainer to him that he needs to head over to Gotham and figure out what’s going on beyond the news. The best way Clark decides to do that today is by going as Clark Kent of the Daily Planet.
Finally a car pulls up that accepts his request and he ducks into the hunk of metal. The driver is silent for the majority of the drive but curiosities get the better of them, questioning why he’s headed into Gotham. Clark gives a brief answer; journalist business. The driver holds in a laugh and makes a comment about how he won’t be short of anything to report on over there.
The car pulls up, Clark giving the driver his pursed lip smile and a thank you as he fumbles out and onto a sidewalk. The air of Gotham has more of a chill to it, the smell of wet cobblestone thick from what must have been an earlier rain. Luckily he opted to wear his warmest suit. Though, the warmth could be a problem depending on what he comes across.
Pushing his glasses all the way up in a pre-game prep way, he begins walking. The buildings look like stepping into a totally different time period or part of the world compared to Metropolis, compared to most cities he’s been to, actually. The gothic architecture has a lived in character, different from the lived in city feel he just left. It’s breath taking, legs slowing to take it all in. No matter how many times he’s been here, which isn’t a ton, he can’t help but to admire, even the more run down areas. That is, all until his attention is taken away; eyebrows furrow as he hears commotion close in the distance, following it, his hand coming up to hold onto the strap of his bag.
That’s when he hears it again and his eyes widen. Batman. Batman is out during the day? Clark never really thought about if he only came out at night or not, now that he thinks of it. He can’t think of much else reason for the sound of it mixed with what seems to be a very big crowd of people.
Superman brings in a crowd, and judging by Gotham’s local papers, the craze about this man dressed as a bat would probably do the same.
Confusion floods his expression as he starts actually taking in the words various people are shouting. Mr. Wayne.
Mr. Wayne? Bruce Wayne?
Clark finds himself at the back of the crowd now, that heartbeat he’s been following no doubt within this area somewhere. He brings himself back to that night; the man on the motorcycle, dressed in layers of clothing and a helmet. Clark tries to sweep over the crowd, seeing if he can notice anybody with that similar build.
He manages to push through the crowd enough to see the subject everybody’s focused on. Bruce Wayne, now a few feet from his car that looks like it costs ten times what Ma and Pa’s farm acres did. Clark’s chest tightens, his eyes slowly trailing from the car to the man. Dressed in a fancy suit that doesn’t have a jacket but a trench coat.
His sonic hearing of this specific heartbeat has only been as clear in this moment as it was when Clark has stood with Batman himself.
Clark’s eyes widen, his stomach flips and his vision goes fuzzy for a second.
The man stops, a look of discomfort or annoyance, Clark can’t tell, on his face as the paparazzi shout different questions at him. Then, he turns to walk up into the building for whatever big event is going on. The heartbeat flows in the same direction as he gets further away.
Clark can’t find it in himself to try picking up anymore information from around him as he turns, pushing himself into the back behind the crowd again.
Bruce Wayne.
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Not to toot his own horn, but he was tooting his own horn when he flew in and helped Batman when his grappling hook was stuck and had him dangling like a shoe off of a power line, but off of a building.
“I didn’t need your help,” he stated firmly.
Clark had his arms crossed, floating off the side of the building with pride. “How long were you hanging there?”
“Not long for it to have made you come all the way here,” the Bat verbally pushes back, manually wrangling the wire and hook back into the contraption in his glove. “So why?”
He keeps his chin up high, despite trying to search his head for an answer.
“You were in the newspaper, front page. Not ours, but I heard. Commotion among the force, eh?”
The Bat stares at him, long and hard. That iciness in it almost makes a chill go down Clark’s spine, never being able to truly read what is going on in that head of his when he does one of those.
“I’m not giving you a scoop.”
Clark gives a faux offended gasp… some truth to it… a lot of truth to it at the other assuming this was for work.
“I’m not asking for an article, jeez! I was asking to check in on you. It’s not like I can just call you or something,” Clark clarifies, fire in his voice.
A sound comes from the Bat that’s one of the last he expects: a laugh. Well, a very short, stuffed down laugh. Clark doesn’t show his excitement in getting to hear that, he too stuffs that down. Maybe the other man wasn’t stuffing it down, maybe that’s something he’s assuming of him too.
This was idiotic of Clark, he himself thought, only for a split second. Soon it was replaced with the reality of what he thought: Why wouldn’t he be fascinated by what is standing in front of him right now? Why wouldn’t a man dressed as an armored Bat be intriguing? Why wouldn’t him finding out who was under it make it ten times more?
“Okay, fine, okay. Was it a little weird to come over here for that? Maybe so! But it’s the truth to why I did.” Clark sighs. “You win. I’ll get out of your hair, Mr. Vengeance." He waves a hand in the other’s direction as he turns to fly off.
“Kent,” the Bat gruffs out, making Clark’s head shoot like a locked-on laser at him.
Clark told Batman about his identity soon after he figured out who he was underneath the Batsuit. Something about the other’s nature made Clark hold off on telling him as soon as he would have liked to — he finds sharing this kind of information between fellow heroes to be a bonding experience. It makes him feel closer to the ones that are more like him, yet… still different from him.
Finding out Batman’s secret identity was the push Clark needed to finally tell him, apparently. Maybe part of it this time was to relieve the small hint of guilt about knowing before the Bat had spoken up himself about it. Hey, I know this thing about you, now you can know this about me. But I’ll keep pretending I don’t know yours. At first it seemed like Batman couldn’t have given less of a care about the matter, but then he started calling him ‘Kent’ when nobody else was around.
Hearing the name ‘Kent’ come off his tongue every time they bumped into each other now made the inside of Clark’s chest bloom with warmth, having to stop himself from hiding around a corner and silently screaming into his own fist. Just hearing ‘Superman’ come from him, that voice, made him buzz with excitement; that change added another layer.
Admittedly, Clark became very intrigued with Bruce Wayne after finding out that day in Gotham. He chalked it up to just using his reporter instincts to try and find context when he began searching up Bruce. Finding out what the media was saying about him beyond Clark’s brief knowledge, studying it in a way, the language they’d use around him. Videos, usually short, of Bruce being approached by paparazzi, asking him whatever questions.
Most of them Bruce ignored, didn’t say anything, but there’s one video he managed to find where he simply says “No comment.” His finger went to the back arrow key on that one and kept replaying his two words over and over. It was because of the voice — Clark was trying to figure out how the voice was different. He did notice pretty quickly the exact type of changes in tone and pitch. Replaying it wasn’t necessary, he knew this, despite trying to tell himself it was curiosity. It was publicly out there, from a public event. It wasn’t weird.
Back to the present moment: this time, the Bat’s heartbeat has sped up, and not in the same way as when he’s in action fighting. The closest time he’s heard Batman’s pulse like this is when Clark had followed him behind that building that one night, and that was for a second or two. Never before that, never after, until now.
Nervous. Batman was growing nervous. This makes Clark float over to the building top, planting his feet down to become leveled with the other.
“What’s up?” Clark answers, giving his full attention, unable to put on some nonchalantly act when he knows in his heart this isn’t the time to try and match the other’s usual rhythm.
“Can I… Tell you something?” the Bat strings together, staring off into the distance, no real signs of nerves from his stance. It looked normal, normal for Batman. The way he delivered those words definitely gave it away, though; in terms of what someone who didn’t have hearing like Clark could tell.
“Okay. I mean, yeah dude, of course,” Clark says, chipper, a shift from his momentarily brooding a minute ago. On the inside, he’s currently feeling those aforementioned ‘wants to go around behind a building and scream into his fist’ feelings. It’s only the two of them here up on this rooftop, down in some back area of Gotham.
He watches the man closely, having to steady his own breathing when Batman’s hands reach up to his mask. Mask with a cape on it. Helmet. Mask-cape. Cape-
Clark stops listing off different combinations of what it’s called when it no longer helps him calm his own nerves down; not when the Bat has now slipped it off his head. His eyes widened, heart hammering. Is it a surprise seeing Bruce? No. What is a surprise, which maybe it shouldn’t be considering it’s common sense, is the makeup ruining down his face. The sight of that, along with the excitement of now being trusted this way, is what makes Clark swallow hard.
The black eyeshadow, eyeliner, face paint — Clark had no clear idea — around his eyes dropped down to his cheeks in a way that didn’t seem intentional. It’s probably due to the drops of rain, or the sweat of being in the suit. That makes this schoolboy feeling inside Clark worse.
“Do you know who I am?”
Clark steps over closer, now standing in front of him, trying to keep the giddy smile off his face. It doesn’t stop the smile from being there.
“Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce nods ever so slightly, eyes trained on Clark.
“Do not tell anybody else. Understand? Nobody.” Bruce still keeps up the deeper voice. Seeing the identities mix in this little way up close makes Clark start floating a few inches off the ground, nodding his head fast.
“Of course,” he almost trips on his tongue responding. “It’s safe with me. I promise.”
Bruce looks down to the ground slowly, then back up at Clark, before running a hand through his moist hair and beginning to fix the mask back onto his head. Clark watches, biting his bottom lip when the other’s eyes look away. Then, he clears his throat, grounding himself again. Suddenly he notices the heat on his cheeks and wonders how noticeable it is to Bruce. Probably not very, you only looked like you were sizing him up by floating out of nowhere. Good going, farm boy. Clark mentally beats himself up half-seriously, rolling his eyes.
It strikes Clark in that moment: Why now? What had happened that made Bruce suddenly feel like he could open up about this? He wanted to know. He wanted to pick at Bruce’s brain and figure it out, figure him out.
Bruce turns swiftly, feet meeting the metal of a ladder and already sliding down it into an alleyway. Clark’s brow furrows, running to the side of the building and looking down at him.
“Hey!” he yells out, earning a look up from the Bat.
“When am I going to see you again?”
Bruce stands there, ominously for a few seconds before shifting focus, rounding the corner and drifting away into the shadows. Clark stands there afterwards, blinking a few seconds and waiting until he can assume the other man is gone out of any possible ear reach.
“…When am I going to see you again?!” Clark scolds himself out loud in a hushed yell-whisper. “Are you out of your mind?” Clark buried his face in his hands, taking a breath in and letting out a long, deep groan.