Chapter Text
Of course the Wayne Enterprises branch in Metropolis would have a seven-foot, slender, wall-mounted television screen permanently playing Fox News. No remote in sight. If Clark had not already waited three hours for Bruce Wayne to come out of his office, he would have left.
It’s been three hours of the President telling the American people to inject themselves with disinfectants. Three hours of chain store CEOs proclaiming that God would spare their workers from the effects of the virus. Three hours of misguided protesters demanding that businesses open at the expense of the country’s most vulnerable.
Clark removed his glasses and rubbed his palms into his eyes until he saw spots. When the sun set, Clark’s mood dropped right along with it. He only lowered his hands when he stopped seeing the secretary’s skull and ribs through his own palms. To her credit, she typed and smiled like she was immune to the television set. In the first hour, Ms. Kayla told him that the plexiglass barrier separating her area from the waiting room had been installed two weeks ago. By the third hour, Clark wondered if it was soundproof.
Half measures.
Ok, ok, maybe one whole measure.
Clark glanced down at his notes. Although he wished that the building was empty, Wayne Enterprises complied with the latest mandates by running a skeleton crew. The chairs and couches in the waiting room each cost more than his rent, but they were tastefully placed at least six feet apart from each other. The Board of Trustees cancelled in-person meetings in favor of teleconferences.
Ms. Kayla just could not tell him when the current conference would end.
Clark knew that the pandemic was the only reason why he had been given the opportunity to interview the CEO himself who, surprisingly, had not fled the country when it became obvious that the healthcare system would be inundated with new cases. Almost every other CEO had, including the craft mogul from hour two. Lois told Clark that the CEO only released that statement after he was on a boat somewhere in the Pacific.
The corruption at the Federal level intertwined with the unethical practices of businesses unwilling to close was arguably the bigger story. Lois aimed for the front page, and Clark knew she wouldn’t miss. That left him with covering how individual hospitals coped with the coronavirus and he was not sure if he could cope with that.
His chest felt tight, and it wasn’t just because he finally heard the low hum of the projector in Wayne’s office stop. In the past few weeks, so many heartbeats had slowed to a crawl in crowded ICUs that Clark stopped listening. A global health crisis could not be conquered with his fists or his flight. The number of unrelated catastrophes, from car accidents to house fires decreased so significantly that Clark could spend a day like this listening for something-- anything --that would require the suit, and return home in failure. The only favor Clark felt he could do for the Earth now was to stay out of the way.
Clark had not felt this helpless since... Black Zero Day.
Jets hurled out of the sky in flaming pieces, skyscrapers cleaved in half crumbling under their own weight, his own ribs cracking from Zod’s left hook.
Focusing on what he could do as Clark Kent, rather than what he could not do as Superman appealed to Clark. Few healthcare workers could spare the time, or the energy for an interview. Instead, Perry White gave Clark the green light on interviewing the man that financed several hospitals in the tri-state area.
Clark fished the hand sanitizer out of his blazer just as Ms. Kayla accepted a phone call. No ringer. Only a flashing light. Internal line.
“Mr. Wayne will see you now,” Ms. Kayla called from behind the glass. “Last door at the end of the hall.”
Clark closed his book and stood up, stretching his arms out only to hunch and shuffle out of the lobby. “Thank you,” Clark stopped and waved, exactly six feet from her enclosure. “Have a good night!”
“You too.” Ms. Kayla had already begun packing up her purse and shutting down her computer.
He supposed Mr. Wayne really did clear his schedule to meet with him. Clark did not have to completely fake his smile when he knocked on the executive’s door.
Clark did not notice that the television clicked off as soon as he left.
--
Two hours, forty-five minutes, and thirteen seconds. Bruce Wayne had to take two hours, forty-five minutes and thirteen seconds to convince the board that suspending all factory and non-essential research operations through the next fiscal quarter was not only advised but necessary.
Bruce could not show them the projections he made independently; the degree of suffering felt by every person in Gotham and around the country if they did nothing kept him up at night. He could not suddenly appear medically competent and understand the exact impact of social distancing on the basic reproduction number of this virus.
He had to kick back, oxblood oxfords on his desk, and complain about how concerning it was that one of the “help,” or “saucy little waitresses,” at the sushi bar could make him sick. The shudder sold it for at least half of the members.
Mentioning the outbreak at Gotham Academy that forced the illustrious school to cancel classes for the first time in fifty-three years, where the other half of the members sent either their children or grandchildren ensured the votes of the rest.
The usual players claimed that the company would face a shortfall of several million dollars because of his reckless acts, and that was when Bruce Wayne was allowed to look bored and tune out, visibly pushing a paperweight across his desk.
They weren’t wrong this time.
But profits could always be made again. The people of Gotham-- his people-- were irreplaceable.
Bruce expected that his last meeting with some small time reporter from the Planet would have evaporated some time in the last three hours.
The routine usually worked. The night before, Bruce would skim through the reporter’s written articles until he could infer their political leanings, and when they arrived, the television in the waiting room would be set to the exact news channel they would oppose.
Bruce’s little trick colored the interviewer’s perceptions of his company and generated a slew of contradictory think pieces on whether or not Bruce himself was a fiscal conservative like every other member of his tax bracket.
Given the glares his latest guest gave the television screen in the past few hours, Bruce believed this interview might be over in record time.
--
“Come on in,” Bruce poured himself a drink, and beckoned Clark inside without looking away from the shot glasses. “What do they call you? Kendrick? Ken?”
“Kent. Clark Kent, sir. Thank you for agreeing to this, Mr. Wayne, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Clark waited by the door; there were no fewer than three couches and two lux armchairs all on this side of Mr. Wayne’s desk. He did not know where to sit.
“Kent, huh? Don’t thank me just yet, Kent. A little quarantine doesn’t stop happy hour." Bruce stood up, glasses pinched between gloved fingers, and nodded towards the couches that lined the floor-to-ceiling windows. He managed to set everything down without spilling the liquid, but Clark still winced at a close call.
"But where are my manners,” Bruce finally turned to Clark and shook his hand, giving him a once over. “Pleasure’s all mine.”
For the first time in his life, Clark felt like he was on the wrong end of his x-ray vision. Bruce’s gaze stopped at his lips and his chest and passed right through him. Clark fidgeted in place, clutching his notebook to his side, and pulled his hand back.
“Katie didn’t tell me you looked like this. They ought to call you Kennedy instead.” Bruce dropped himself onto the corner cushion, knees wide, arm resting on the back of the couch.
“Mr. Wayne, no one’s ever called me that in my life,” Clark shook his head, and shuffled around the opposite end of the coffee table, avoiding Bruce’s legs to sit on the opposite couch. “And I think her name is Ms. Kayla.” He sighed, arranging his folders and mentally preparing himself for the unfortunate chance that this interview might be more frustrating than all three hours of waiting combined.
“Kayla, Katie. K’s are always tough. But not with a face like yours, Kennedy. Classic, strong jaw. Presidential. Tell me you do modeling on the side.” Bruce pushed one of the shot glasses towards Clark’s side of the table and picked up his own. “You drink?”
Rather than roll his eyes, Clark frowned. “Not at work, sir. And nope, never modeled neither, but I was hoping to interview you today, so if you don’t mind, I have a few questions I’d like to ask.” His voice petered out a little at the end, as he lifted his tape recorder. Lois warned him that the CEO of Wayne Enterprises was a flirt but Clark could not believe it was this bad. His ears were already warm.
“Not even if you’re off the clock? C’mon, Mr. President. I won’t tell if you won’t.” Bruce winked. “Plus, the bars are closed. Kayla told me that you were out there for hours, and everybody needs to take the edge off right about now. Think of it as me bringing the bar to you.”
“How about I just think about it after the interview?” Clark made a point of holding the recorder up, still off and silent.
“Suit yourself.” Bruce knocked his drink back with a nonchalant shrug. “When are you going to turn that thing on anyways?”
“Just figured I’d wait for you to finish bribing me with what looks like a…” Clark uncapped his pen and set his notebook against his knee. “Kentucky bourbon that’s older than I am before we went on record, sir.”
With the burn of the caramel liquor still in his throat, Bruce raised a brow and nodded. “The Old Rip Van Winkle’s only worth drinking after it’s been in a barrel for twenty-five years. Didn’t think you would know your alcohol like that, JFK. Costs a pretty penny. You from around there?”
“No sir. My folks are from down South but they moved long before I was born. I’m from Kansas.” Clark’s smile returned as he reminisced about his parents, both of whom had held onto small pieces of their home before they made a home with each other. He straightened his tie and shifted his list of questions to the top of the page.
God, that tie was an ugly, ugly thing. Some checkerboard monstrosity that managed to be wrinkled and stiff. “That explains it. I know everyone around here with those.” Bruce mirrored Clark and reached for his tie, but instead of making himself more presentable, he loosened it to the point that a little hair poked out of his collar. “And I don’t know you.”
Clark blanched. “You know everyone… with ties?”
“Mr. Kennedy!" Bruce let out a scandalized gasp, the silken baritone still deeper than Clark's own voice somehow. "Don’t let that Yale education go to waste. I’m talking about the lanyard around your neck.”
“Oh! Oh.” Clark swallowed again. “Sorry, right. That makes sense. I’m. I’m new to that part of it-- here at the Planet, I mean.”
“That makes sense,” Bruce copied Clark’s cadence, looking playful. “Pretty sure I own that one, and if your editor’s been keeping you away from me, I should fire him.”
“That’s not right, and I’d like to hope that you wouldn’t do that, Mr. Wayne. Perry’s a good man.” Unlike you.
Clark exhaled through his nostrils. Bruce had thrown him for a few loops, but threatening the job security of a man Clark respected crossed a line.
Four miles away, an exhausted nurse announced the third code blue in as many hours in a crowded hospital just outside of Metropolis proper.
An hour ago, Lois linked him to an Associated Press brief on the uptick of calls to the Poison Control Center following the President's press conference.
The whole world was suffering and fighting against an enemy he couldn't stop and men like Bruce Wayne could sit here joking about taking someone's job away in his Hugo Boss suit while drinking a twenty-thousand dollar bottle of bourbon by himself.
"Frankly, with your spending habits, Mr. Wayne, I’m surprised that you know which ones you ‘own,’ and which you don’t.”
Bruce Wayne was silent for the first time this interview. He looked offended. Clark didn’t care.
“I’d like to interrogate that, actually, if you don’t mind,” Clark took a deep breath. “Just to better understand you as a businessman. Why invest in something like The Daily Planet? Their commitment to fact-based reporting in an era of disinformation sets them apart. Couldn’t help but notice on the way in that Fox News was playing for the better part of the afternoon.”
“They’re all the same.” Bruce dismissed the question with a wave of his hand, and filled his glass again. “What difference does it make if it’s the Planet or Fox?”
“Forgive me, Mr. Wayne, but many would argue that there’s a huge difference between those publications. And, respectfully, I think that you know that too, sir. Wayne Enterprises purchased the Planet only a few days after Black Zero Day. As a result, The Daily Planet building was rebuilt just as swiftly as the Wayne building here in Metropolis, when compared to the construction timelines in the rest of downtown.” The light on Clark’s recorder blinked in the silence.
“Alright, Kennedy. You caught me. Red-handed.” Bruce set down the glass without taking a sip. “I wanted to make a good first impression. Not every piece of news that makes it across the bay about us is good. Getting a head start here might get us on Metropolis’ good side.”
“Wow,” Clark blinked a few times, glancing from his recorder back up to Bruce. He couldn’t believe that those words had just left the man’s mouth. “Do you really think that having a stake in the paper’s holdings will allow you to influence what it publishes?”
“Is that not how it works here?” Bruce scratched his chin, looking lost. “I’ve gotta say, Mr. President, the look you’re giving me makes me think I should say no.”
“Mr. Wayne, I don’t want you to say anything you don’t already want to.” Clark pursed his lips. “But no, if you’re asking for my opinion, sir, what any newspaper publishes should have nothing to do with who pays for the ink.”
“Only papers?”
“I’m sorry?” Clark met Bruce’s gaze. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll repeat myself, but only because of those baby blues.” Bruce sat forward, trousers sliding over the leather cushion. “Only papers? Or do you feel that way about other things too? People?”
“No, I don’t think that you should be able to do that either. Bribery, and the injection of money into everything from politics to business deals for personal gain is often regarded as nepotism, Mr. Wayne. It’s frowned upon for a reason.” Clark added firmly, resisting the urge to cross his arms.
“So if I asked you to dinner without the ‘expectation’ of personal gain,” Bruce made air-quotes with his fingers, “you’d be fine with that?”
“Yes. Theoretically. I mean. No. No, sir. You’re free to-- you’re free to ask, just as I’m free to refuse,” Clark corrected, glaring down at his notes to keep from watching Bruce… watching him. His gaze was too intense for Clark. From the shape of his brow to the attractive greys at his temples, Clark understood why a certain Person-related magazine that would not be named tapped Mr. Wayne as the world’s sexiest bachelor for the fourth time running.
Clark still wanted to punch him. “But I’ll be honest, Mr. Wayne, nothing you’ve said tonight would make me want to say yes. Even if I wasn’t working.” Two could play this game.
“Ouch, Mr. President. I’m feeling a little like Marilyn Monroe over here. Help me out.” Bruce Wayne, heir to a billion-dollar fortune, CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, and apparent owner of a fledgling conscience, actually pouted. “What do I have to do to turn that no into a yes?”
“Sadly, Mr. Wayne, I’m no miracle worker," Clark paused, palms warm. "But if you agree to let me start the actual interview and promise to talk about what your company is doing to shore up local hospitals as they weather this crisis, you might get a maybe.” Clark’s own heartbeat blocked out all other sounds. Blood rushed between his ears.
Clark was not a gambling man. Flirting back, even in a lighthearted way, with an older man so far out of his league he could coach him would probably backfire. And then, Clark would die of secondhand embarrassment when he replayed this exact moment on his recorder later tonight. Twice the risk for zero payoff.
Bruce liked risks.
“Deal.”