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“Clark, I can’t believe you never told me, you know that you owe me at the very least an interview.” Lois was peering over the side of Clark’s cubicle, her sharp eyes flashing with interest. “Come on, you made me look like an idiot, everyone’s asking what kind of a reporter I am for not knowing that my best friend and colleague was dating Batman. Come on!”
Clark looked over his glasses at her and smiled good-naturedly. “This is why I didn’t tell anyone, Lois.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “I guess that’s fair, but come on, it’s big news, Gotham’s greatest vigilante is dating country bumpkin Clark Kent! What does the Dark Knight see in you? ...no offense,” she added, her cheeks going pink. “I just mean--how did you meet ?” She gasped. “Oh my God--do you know his secret identity?”
Clark pushed his chair away from his desk and picked up the coffee he’d accidentally let get stone cold. He was so used to being able to heat it back up with his heat vision, letting his coffee get cold was just something he did, but the constant attention from Lois and the rest of the Daily Planet was making his usual discreet use of his powers that much less discreet. He hated wasting the coffee, but he’d imposed a strict ‘no powers at work’ ban on himself until things had died down. If they ever did, he thought wearily. “Lois, you know I couldn’t tell you that even if I did know.”
“Oh, so--you’re dating Batman. Oh, wow. What’s that like ?” Clark could hear in her voice that her mind was running wild, and he suppressed a grin as he walked towards the break room, Lois in tow.
“Let’s just say doing laundry is an all-night affair.” Clark tugged at the white collar of his shirt. Lois paused, her eyes searching his shirt, before she got it.
“Oh. Can’t mix--can’t mix darks and whites, I get it, haha, funny, Clark,” Lois said, rolling her eyes and punching him softly on the arm. “Does Batman laugh at your jokes?”
“He’s the only one that does,” Clark said, dumping his coffee down the drain and setting his mug down on the counter, pretending to search for the coffee grounds. He’d seen through the walls before they reached the break room that someone had moved the bag from the top of the fridge to the uppermost cabinet on the opposite side of the room, so he had to put a moderate effort into pretending he didn’t know that. He’d never realized just how much effort went into pretending to be human, it was exhausting sometimes.
Lois beamed at Clark. “That’s so sweet. You like him so much.”
“How can you tell?” Clark asked, bemused, opening the upper cabinet and grabbing the bag of grounds without looking--fortunately, Lois was too distracted to notice.
“It’s just your face. The way you light up when you talk about him. You’re so cute.” Lois sighed and hopped up onto the cabinet while she watched Clark meter out the grounds. “I just hope he tells you his secret identity.”
“Hoping I’ll tell you?”
“Of course.” Lois flashed a dazzling, toothy smile, the one Clark recognized as her ‘I’m going to get this scoop even if it kills me’ smile. “I’m serious, though. You deserve to know. I know, I know, you guys have only been dating for a few months and he doesn’t know you the way I do, but trust me. If he’s a decent guy at all, he’ll realize eventually what a fantastic, trustworthy guy you are and he’ll have no trouble telling you who he is behind the cowl.”
“I’m not sure I’d really want to know, though,” Clark said over the bubbling of the coffee machine. “That’s dangerous information, you know.” He briefly thought back to just a few weeks ago when he’d had to allow himself to be kidnapped as he walked home from work.
“Not sure what Batman would want this newspaper schlub for, but he’ll come for him eventually.” Penguin had had to assure Riddler as they drove to some shipping yard, Clark tied in the trunk, watching the streetlights go by through the thin metal and thinking with dull irritation that, while he waited for Bruce to spring him, he was missing Chopped.
Of course Bruce had thought it was hysterical. “You were so bad, ” he said, having to take his mask off to wipe the tears as they waited on a rooftop for the police to arrive for Penguin and the Riddler. “‘ Batman, help me, they’re gonna kill me,’ you’re such a bad actor, I’m sorry, Kal--”
“Hey, you weren’t any better, when Penguin stabbed me and you almost laughed?” Clark checked his leg again through the tear in his pants; the scar had now faded to a pale pink line that would be gone within the hour. “It’s a good thing my screams of pain distracted him.”
“Yeah, screams of pain, right. Aaaaaaaah, you stabbed me, oh, God, it hurts,” Bruce said, dropping his voice to a flat, disinterested tone. “ Bruce--I mean, Batman--help, it hurts so bad .”
Clark cozied up to Bruce and rubbed his thigh. “You know, it does still hurt a little bit--ma used to kiss my cuts and scrapes to make them feel better when I was a kid.”
“Clark? Did you hear me?” Lois said, snapping her fingers in front of his face.
“Oh, right,” he said, coming back to reality. He very rarely was so distracted, he could focus on twenty separate conversations with ease. Bruce, however, was a different subject altogether. “I’m so sorry, Lois, forgive me, what did you say?”
Lois pursed her lips. “I said, I’d really like to do an interview with you. About Batman. Please?”
Clark sighed and refilled his mug, before offering the pot to Lois, who shook her head and he returned it to the coffee machine. “I...yeah, I can do that, no problem.”
“Great. It’s gonna be really good, everyone’s going to want to know if Batman’s a good kisser or not. Headline news, really.”
Clark could feel himself burning up. A good kisser?! What would his parents think when they read that?! No doubt Bruce would get a kick out of it no matter how Clark answered, probably would have the article framed. Probably would buy seven thousand copies and wallpaper the Batcave with them. No, he was gonna have to come up with something a little dirtier in order to get back at Bruce.
I’ve got it, he thought, taking a sip of his scaldingly hot coffee.
***
“And finally, I want to thank everyone for attending,” Bruce said, sipping lightly at his champagne, addressing the crowd gathered in the ballroom from his balcony. “It’s been a group effort, and I want to thank everyone for their contributions to the new wing at Arkham. I think this is going to be a step in the right direction for a newer, safer, Gotham. Cheers.”
The partygoers applauded evenly; most of them were clutching champagne flutes of their own.
“Was it alright?” Bruce asked Alfred, passing off his glass, still nearly full, which Alfred accepted with a curt nod.
“Short and to the point, sir. Quite admirable, considering who we’re talking about.”
“Thanks.” Bruce loosened his bow and went back to the balcony, watching the crowd below carefully. Tonight just wasn’t a night he was in the mood to deal with a rogue element, like an explosive, or a gun, or--
“Sir, did you invite Master Kent?”
“I didn’t,” Bruce replied; he could only watch as Clark ascended gracefully to his position on the balcony, his cape fluttering behind him, while the crowd below pointed and gasped and whispered among themselves. “He better not be doing what I think he’s doing.”
Clark approached the balcony, resting one foot on the railing and looking down at Bruce with a truly shark-like grin. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it, Bruce?” he said, and before Bruce could dive for cover, Clark had swept him up and was kissing him, while their audience gasped and pointed and tittered, and, while Bruce was going to have a nightmare to deal with in the morning, for some reason at that very moment, he just couldn’t bring himself to care.