Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.