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The first time Bruce sees the photo, it’s because Barry emails it to him with the subject line think you’ll like this and seven winking emojis. And Bruce has taken a solemn vow to stop murdering people, or branding them, or finding out their greatest weakness before making elaborate contingency plans to kill them should a situation arise, but he still thinks longingly of making an exception. Barry, who is altogether too perceptive and has no concept of email etiquette, has made no effort to compose a message and has merely attached a photo. It’s probably not dangerous to open, Bruce thinks, naively, and then he opens it.
And – for another thing – he’s seen Clark shirtless before. He’s been attacked by a shirtless Clark before. He is an adult man in control of his emotions and not, as Barry seems to think, a schoolboy with a crush. But—
Well.
It’s clearly Superman, not Clark Kent, in the picture. The glasses are off, the shoulders are back, and there’s barely an ironic twist to the smile he’s directing right into the lens, even though the set-up is objectively ridiculous.
Bruce has contended with super-villains and hostile aliens and yet he feels totally disarmed by a simple picture of Superman shirtless, surrounded by puppies.
He replies to Barry: What is this? Then he minimizes the photo and breathes carefully through his nose for the four minutes it takes to get a response.
uhhh supermans a pornstar now dude idk what to tell u
It takes ten more minutes of silence for Barry to sheepishly backtrack.
he rlly didn’t tell u? its a charity thing i think like a calendar for a good cause??? hal posed for june and november nd theyre suddenly my favorite months lmao. i think superman is february and august
Before he can think better of it, Bruce sends: Where’s the other picture?
It would be ridiculous to look for hidden meanings in the months chosen. However, one of the cons of cultivating an automatically analytical mind is that Bruce can’t help it.
Clark’s real birth date is in late February – the ship had told them that much – but he’s celebrated his birthday in June since he’s been on Earth. Since the break-up with Lois a few months ago, it seems like an oversight for him to be featured in the month most commonly associated with romance, but there isn’t really anything else of note about February. (Except Bruce’s birthday.) August, the sunniest month, makes complete sense.
The next reply from Barry is slightly longer, with the second photo attached.
look i know ur still claiming u don’t like-like him even though i have superspeed and i can see all ur microexpressions but seriously i don’t even think superman is that hot and i kind of died seeing this picture like im just looking for ur increasingly tenuous mental health old man. also hal says hi and that if u don’t make a move on superman soon then he’s gonna based solely on this photo, so. heads up
Bruce makes the executive decision to take the rest of the day off.
He drives himself home from the office, obeying traffic laws to the letter and not allowing his mind to stray to the unopened picture. Alfred takes one look at him once he gets through the door and says, mildly, “I see that you have been made aware of Master Kent’s charity project, then?”
“You knew?”
“I didn’t consider it to be worth distracting you with.” Meaning Alfred is keeping secrets for other members of the team again. That should annoy Bruce more than it actually does.
“No, of course not,” Bruce grits out. “I came home for – there’s an adjustment I want to make to the armor, actually, a slight weakness under the arm that needs looking at. I’ll be in the cave.”
“And would you object to any disruptions during this…adjustment, Master Bruce?”
Bruce glares at him. “Take the day off, Alfred.”
When he logs into the bat cave’s computer, there’s another email notification from Barry.
r u dead yet? shld i call ur therapist?
He sighs, responds. I don’t have a therapist.
but u know that explains a LOT, right? mostly the bat costume, but. other stuff too. anYWAY the picture: ur review.
I haven’t opened it yet. I have more pressing responsibilities than keeping track of Superman’s personal or professional choices.
suuuuuuuuure ok but just so u know for when u do get round to it, it’s considered impolite to jerk off over pictures of ur colleagues and also he might hear u
The Justice League needs an HR department purely so you can be forced to attend a seminar on sexual harassment.
ok yeah but tell me u haven’t thought about the fact that, potentially, superman can ALWAYS hear u. and me. and, like, everyone in the world or at least the greater metropolis area idk what the limits on his super-hearing are
Superman does his best not to invade anyone’s privacy, least of all ours.
boy scout, i forgot.
Indeed.
Bruce takes a deep breath, and then another. Barry’s build-up must be over-the-top, he thinks. And Hal isn’t exactly known for his choosiness when it comes to sexual partners, so his opinion hardly matters. The picture will be – okay, fine – a little arousing, but not an insurmountable problem. Nothing he can’t handle.
He clicks to open the file.
To say he falls out of his chair would be an exaggeration. He slips, a little bit. It happens.
Whoever is handling Superman’s PR is doing a terrible job. He’s meant to be a wholesome superhero, Bruce thinks, and this is downright pornographic. He’s – in a bed, for one thing, sprawled out at a lazy angle but with all that skin on display, trail of hair leading suggestively downwards. He’s still Clark, obviously, so there’s a hint of humor in his expression, but all the same, he looks…inviting. He’s run a hand through his hair, or one of the stylists on set has, like he’s been—
Bruce sucks in a ragged breath. It’s fine; it’s just Clark. The moment after the photo was taken, he probably burst into one of those laughs where his eyes screwed up and his mouth stretched wide, probably—
Probably looked just as beautiful, in point of fact.
*
Bruce stares at the photo for so long that he stops keeping track of the time and just loses himself in tracing over the lines and shadows with his eyes, committing the entire thing to memory. It’s fine to look, he reasons with himself. He simply mustn’t allow himself to…fantasize, no matter how appealing the prospect might be.
Once it’s been so long that his stomach starts grumbling, he switches to the picture of Clark with the puppies, which is marginally safer in that it only makes Bruce wish Clark would adopt a dog with him, rather than fuck him into the nearest flat surface. Of the two hopeless urges, the animal adoption route seems less invasive.
It is essential to strategize. As one of the leaders of the Justice League, he will have to discuss the matter with Superman (before the calendar is released to the public, at least) and make sure that it’s the right move in terms of the League’s publicity. But it can’t look like he’s singling Clark out; he’ll have to establish who else is involved in the charity project, and perhaps speak to them all at once, simply to ascertain that this is the image they wish to cultivate…
But mostly he just wants to ask Clark why.
Barry was right about the micro-expressions – if he can see them, surely Clark isn’t able to keep his speed in check enough to miss them. Surely Bruce’s feelings are written as clearly on his face as if they were in ink. Clark is – polite, and there is no reason he would have brought up the situation if he thought it would make Bruce uncomfortable (and there’s a vague irony in that, which he ignores, although the shirtless picture stares back at him mockingly). And he hadn’t told Bruce about the photoshoot, probably anticipating his disapproval. Bruce had been forced to find out from Barry, which is galling, but at least gives him more time to process.
“May I be permitted to get you some dinner, Master Bruce?”
Bruce jumps.
It’s somewhat embarrassing. Alfred hasn’t been able to sneak up on him since he was eight years old.
“Thought I told you to take the day off,” he mumbles, trying to minimize the tab in a casual, relaxed way, rather than like a teenager who’s just been caught watching porn for the first time.
“And, under your advisement, I took eight hours of personal time,” Alfred says briskly. So that’s how long it’s been. “I visited Ms Prince, and attended to some personal matters, and then I returned. I suspect that you haven’t eaten all day.”
Bruce makes a non-committal sound.
“Very good, sir. I shall return with something to keep your strength up.”
He can sense that he’s being made fun of, but it isn’t worth fighting over. “Did Diana mention the calendar?” he asks, before he can think better of it.
“Of course. She posed for the months of May and October,” Alfred says. “She said that she found the experience altogether empowering.”
Bruce groans and slams his head on the desk.
*
He gets as far as opening a blank email and addressing it to Clark, Diana and Hal before Alfred comes back with an array of small sandwiches.
“Who else was involved?” he asks.
“I believe Mr Allen, Mr Stone, and Mr Curry declined,” Alfred said. “According to Ms Prince, the other participants were the women known as Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman.”
“They’re – shouldn’t they be in Arkham? Or some other prison, at least?” Bruce says, rubbing his temples.
Alfred nods. “They are, as they should be. However, the calendar was intended to act as a signifier of peace in the New Year, bringing heroes and villains together. They say Harley is considerably better, when she is kept away from the Joker, and her two companions are serving short sentences for theft of flowers and diamonds, respectively. They claim to be—” Here, Alfred allows himself an amused smile. “—turning over a new leaf.”
“How did I not know about this?”
“It was in the Justice League groupchat, sir.”
“I – what?” Bruce is, technically, a member of the groupchat, but once it started being used primarily as a means for Clark and Barry to share memes with one another, he’d deleted the messenger app on the previously correct assumption that he would be informed of anything important by email.
“The charity also attempted to reach out to Batman, but I assumed you would not wish his privacy to be compromised in such a way.”
Which is a nice way of saying, Bruce Wayne has been photographed half-naked too many times for Batman to ever take off a single piece of body armor.
“Which charity is it even for?”
“Something about books, sir.”
Through superhuman effort, Bruce does not throw anything at the wall.
*
Bruce spends the next two days strategizing. He doesn’t turn on the news, or allow himself any other meaningless distractions, like social media. He simply makes notes on each picture that makes up the finished calendar and works out the best approach for discussing the matter with each of the participants.
The Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman spreads are predictably sexualized, although for the month of July there’s a picture of them all together, having a pillow fight, and Bruce finds himself – not smiling, exactly, but the corner of his lip quirks up. It’s just nice to see Harley with friends, he thinks, rather than the psychopath who ruined her life.
Of course, September features Harley and Ivy in something of a compromising position, so perhaps ‘friends’ isn’t precisely the right terminology.
Since they’re not teammates, and he respects their rights to make their own decisions so long as those decisions are legal, he decides against talking to any of them. Which just leaves the three members of the Justice League.
He has no real complaint with Hal or Diana’s – they both work with their established heroic personas. For May, Diana has posed as Rosie the Riveter, with the full Wonder Woman costume on; for September, she’s in red and gold underwear, lifting a bar weight high above her head. He can see why she’d considered the experience empowering, at least. Hal’s are considerably more tongue-in-cheek: for June he’s using the ring to create a pair of tight green briefs, grinning at the camera, and for November he’s jokingly kissing a photo of the Flash. Which is fine – if Hal and Barry want to go public with their relationship, they’re more than entitled to. The League has contended with far more than homophobia, at this point.
This leaves the Superman ones, which are still posing a problem.
The one with the puppies is fine, Bruce decides. Superman saves cats out of trees all the time, and he’s wearing jeans in the picture; it’s the sort of thing you could show to your grandmother without much objection. Wholesome.
The February picture, however, is going to haunt Bruce’s dreams from now until the end of time, and he never wants a single other person to see it.
*
u know u can just talk to him, right?
Bruce sighs. Turning to Barry for advice is a low point, but perhaps this entire thing has been a low point. He doesn’t really want to keep examining it.
I don’t wish to offend him or make him feel as though he’s not entitled to make his own choices. He needs to consider the impact this will have on the League.
uh huh. the league. definitely not ur boner
Barry.
srry, but also maybe u shld tell him how the picture made u feeeeeeeeel
Bruce glances down at the notes he’d made about the February picture: ‘unduly revealing’, ‘significantly different from Superman’s public image thus far’ – all the things that it will be safe to say to Clark, when the time comes.
ok ok i forgot u don’t have feelings but i bet u DO have an elevated heartrate every time u look at the picture so maybe u shld tell him about that OR just look at the picture in front of him and then he’ll know and u won’t even have to use ur words. am i the best at solving problems or what?
And Bruce can’t believe he’s asking, but: What’s Hal’s opinion on this?
He’s run out of options, or he’s officially gone insane.
awwwww hes gonna be so honored that u asked
he says that u shld get ur head out of ur ass and man up (which i told him was sexist and am calling wonder woman as we speak) and just TELL HIM THAT U ARE IN LOVE WITH HIM AND HIS MANLY HAIRY CHEST
those r hal’s words not mine pls don’t kill me
The alert that signifies a member of the League is accessing the cave chimes, and Bruce presses the escape button so hard that he breaks the keyboard.
“Bruce?” Clark calls out, and Bruce had been hoping to have at least until the League meeting next week before he had to deal with this.
“Here,” he replies, forced casual.
Clark says, “Hal emailed me,” and Bruce feels a sick lurch in his stomach, but: “He said you had some thoughts about the charity calendar?”
“Right,” Bruce says. “Well, it’s – I appreciate that it’s for a good cause, Clark, and I believe the August picture will provide a significant boost to the likability of both Superman and the League as a whole. It makes you seem…more human.”
“And the February picture doesn’t?” Clark is smirking. Clark isn’t supposed to know how to smirk like that.
Bruce shakes his head, trying to clear it. “It’s not a case of – there’s a certain image we’ve got to maintain…”
“Bruce Wayne has posed for Playboy,” Clark points out, which isn’t a thing he’s meant to know. Bruce didn’t even know those photos were still on the Internet. “Actually, you’ve posed for a lot of publications.”
“Bruce Wayne has done a lot of things,” Bruce says. “And all of those things are contiguous with his image. Superman isn’t meant to be…like Bruce Wayne.”
“Enlighten me, as to the ways Superman is supposed to be different from Br—from you.”
If Bruce is forced to say the word ‘sex’, as a prefix or otherwise, he is going to lose whatever tenuous control he has over this conversation.
“It’s…erotic,” he says, which turns out to be worse.
“Yes,” Clark says, “I suppose it is. That’s the kind of calendar we were doing, after all. I was being a team player.” He hasn’t stopped smirking. If Bruce had ever managed to sneak away from a conversation with Clark, the way he can with most everyone else, he’d be doing that now.
“There was no need – as I said, August is fine. There must be something more appropriate you can do, for February; it’s just a case of getting another picture taken before the deadline.”
“Okay.”
“You – okay?”
“I can take another picture, if that’s what you want,” Clark says. “It’s another couple of weeks until the calendar goes to print, and you can have complete creative control, if you want.”
Bruce thinks about being involved in the make-up photoshoot in any capacity. “Oh, that won’t be necessary.” He might be blushing, although he thought he’d trained himself out of doing that years ago.
“I just wish you’d be honest with me about your reasoning,” Clark says, almost gently.
Which is – ridiculous; Bruce is being entirely reasonable. Logical, even.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he manages. Then, because he can’t help himself, “Why February?”
“Your birthday’s in February,” Clark says, without missing a beat.
And Clark isn’t cruel, so, “It was a birthday present?” Bruce says, amusement tripping into his voice.
“We’re closer to Christmas than your birthday, but I suppose you could say that.”
“Why?”
“I was testing a theory.”
“A theory.”
“Alfred called me before Hal got in contact,” Clark says, something of a non-sequitur. Bruce allows it. “He told me you haven’t left the cave in nearly three days.”
“That wasn’t – I didn’t ask him to—”
“He said that he couldn’t stand it anymore.” Clark smiles in a way that might be patronizing if Bruce didn’t know him. “Actually, he said, you caused this, go fix it, which I found…interesting.”
Bruce is abruptly glad that he’s sitting down, because otherwise he’d need something to lean on.
“I was worried about the team,” he says. His voice is, possibly, weaker than Clark has ever heard it. “You…”
“Bruce.”
“You needed to consider…”
“It really is like pulling teeth,” Clark mutters, almost to himself, and then faster than Bruce can fully comprehend it he’s right there, close enough that Bruce can smell that too-familiar scent, which he’s never found a way to fully describe beyond ‘a sunny day’. “You can tell me to go away.”
With the heightened senses, Clark can probably see the way Bruce’s pupils have dilated, the way his heartbeat’s kicked up. There’s no use in hiding it.
“You’re attracted to me,” Clark murmurs.
It’s not a question, but Bruce feels compelled, anyway, to say: “Yes.”
Clark smiles. “There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? Since we’re doing confessions, I didn’t find those Playboy pictures out of an altruistic concern for the League, either.”
Bruce looks up at him. “I still don’t want that photo getting published,” he says. “For all the reasons I said before. And…”
“And you’d be jealous,” Clark finishes. He’s full-on grinning, now, that thousand-kilowatt smile that’s impossible to look away from.
There’s nothing to stop him, Bruce realizes abruptly, from reaching out and kissing Clark, kissing Superman, which is terrifying but in the way that jumping from a skyscraper knowing that there’s someone who will catch him is terrifying. Except, well, Alfred was right: he’s been in the cave for three days.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he says, “and then I am going to come back down here and kiss you until you can’t see straight.”
“That all?” Clark says, laughing.
Bruce raises an eyebrow, feeling slightly more in control now that there’s nothing to hide. “We’ll see.”
*
At the League meeting, Bruce and Clark sit carefully on separate sides of the table. Barry keeps looking between them like their facial expressions are a game of volleyball, his head a blur with it, but other than that they don’t draw too much attention to themselves.
Especially once Arthur walks in.
“Uh, dude,” Barry says, “what are you wearing?”
“Oh, this?” Arthur replies, indicating the orange scales that are clutching at his chest. “Yeah, I’m Oceanmaster now. Master of the oceans. There was a whole thing where Atlantis almost declared war on the entire land world, and I had to find the ancient trident of this dead sea king, and I found out my half-brother was kind of a massive dick when he tried to kill me during a ritual duel, plus my mother’s been alive this entire time on an island with dinosaurs. I assumed you guys had something more important going on.”
“Who’s that?” Victor asks, indicating the red-headed woman who’s standing in the doorway, also clad in skin-tight scales. Bruce wonders what it is with Atlanteans and skin-tight scales.
“I am Princess Mera,” the woman says. “And I wish to be a part of your League.”
“Does she have to audition?” Barry says in a stage-whisper. “Do we have auditions?”
“I control water,” Mera says, twirling her finger. The water in Bruce’s glass twirls into a small tornado. “I presume this could be of use to you?”
“Um,” Clark says, and he’s staring at Bruce. “Probably?”
“Of course,” Bruce says, as smoothly as he’s capable of doing whilst also processing the fact that not turning on the news during the Calendar Incident and subsequent five days of not leaving his bedroom may have been an oversight. “Please take a seat, Princess Mera.”
“Hey, this is really great, because after Hal joined I was really thinking of bringing up the gender imbalance,” Barry says. “I mean, it’s still super unbalanced, but the path to equality is slow-going sometimes. Hey, Mera, have you tried milkshakes yet? I’m guessing they don’t have those in Atlantis. You should try them sometime.”
“It will be an honor to fight alongside you, Princess,” Diana says, cutting him off.
“Just Mera is fine,” Mera says. “And the honor is all mine.”
“So, what were you all so busy with that you didn’t notice the war?” Arthur asks.
Everyone at the table very studiously avoids each other’s eyes, until Barry digs through a backpack and pulls out the completed Heroes & Villains 2019 Calendar, tossing it onto the table.
“There was an emergency,” he says.