Chapter Text
Clark always though Bruce Wayne was a little odd. Strangely enough it had nothing to do with being Batman. At least, Clark thought it had nothing to do with Batman.
It was just sometimes, there were things. Little things. Things that sort of added to the whole... mystique of Batman. Things like staring into space sometimes. Except, he wasn't staring into space. Clark had seen people stare into space, he'd done it himself enough times too to know what it was supposed to look like. On Bruce? There was no glaze to his eyes when he stared off, which really got to Clark when he finally put a name to what about Bruce staring at nothing bothered him.
He didn't stare at nothing. Well he did. But the nothing to Clark was something to Bruce. It was something that held his eyes focus. That kept Bruce's brain engaged enough that he concentrated on it and everything around him enough to not be staring into space.
It was a little worrying.
Then there were the other things. Like the mutterings.
Sometimes it was when he was staring at 'nothing', sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes Bruce would be having a perfectly okay conversation with someone and right in the middle of it hiss something under his breath. The other person didn't notice. Clark did. Clark had superhearing. He heard everything Bruce did, everything he said, meaning Clark heard the mutters of "not now," "shut up won't you," and other things sometimes along those lines.
Might they have been for who Bruce was speaking to? Maybe. Clark honestly wasn't too sure about this one. But sometimes, when Bruce did it when no one was speaking to him, when he was concentrating on something no one else could see, sometimes Clark wondered.
There were other things too. Things like the nightmares Clark had been witness too. The way shadows seemed to engulf him sometimes. Signs Clark had seen on other metas on occasion and had considered getting one of them in just to see if they thought there might be a slither of a chance Bruce had the meta gene too.
He didn't know, and honestly it wasn't his business those early years so Clark left it alone.
Then Harvey happened.
Clark was a journalist. What's more he shared a floor with Cat, meaning he was privy to all the celebrity gossip before it hit the front page. So, Clark knew, even if the rest of the league was in the dark about Batman's identity, that Bruce was dating. That he was dating a guy. Harvey.
"He seems nice," Clark told him over monitor duty one evening.
Bruce glared at him from behind the cowl.
Right, no personal talk on the watchtower. "He does though," not that Clark cared, he could just be passing a comment on the guy after all. "Very sweet."
He'd seen the photos. Seen how happy Bruce looked under Harvey's arm or sitting opposite him. It was, indeed, very sweet. More so because that meant Bruce was capable of being human, and any day Bruce smiled meant the world wasn't completely irredeemable.
"I like his policies," and the way he seemed to be a bit of a Batman fan. Sort of. He was Batman's fan one day and his worst enemy the next. It was like the guy couldn't make his mind up on what to make of Bruce's alter ego. "Not bad to look at either."
There was a short huff then, "If you like him so much why don't you ask him out?"
Clark gave him a look. "Ha ha." He wasn't like that. Even if he was he wouldn't undermine Bruce like that and they both knew it. "I'm trying to say I'm happy for you."
Another noise, "Well don't."
Right. It wasn't like they were friends or anything.
Except one night, a few months after that conversation Clark got a call. An unknown number which usually he never answered since Clark Kent was the one with the phone not Superman meaning no one important was going to be ringing him up.
But it was late and Clark had been sleeping so he didn't really look before asking "'lo?"
"Can you hear specific things? Like if I give you a recording of someone's voice could you try and find them?"
"Bruce?"
"You didn't answer?" Yeah, that was Bruce.
"Er..." question. There'd been a question. "I guess?"
There was a sigh of relief before Clark was listening to a snippet of Harvey Dents voice through the speaker.
"Why didn't you just say it was..." he sighed, tuning into the world around him. He found Harvey easily enough, the guy pacing in an empty room. "He sounds about thirty miles from you. Everything alright?" Harvey sounded fine, but fine to Clark wasn't exactly fine to the rest of Gotham.
"Fine." The line cut dead.
Clark tried asking after that just what happened, but, as usual, Bruce kept his lips tight. Except when he was muttering under his breath for someone to stay out of things.
...okay...
Then the accident happened. The one that was plastered not only in Gotham but Metropolis, Coast, Central, Star, DC, New York, basically everywhere. A hate crime. A tragedy. Whatever the media said or span it didn't change the fact that Harvey Dent had just been attacked. That he'd had half his face melted off live on television.
Clark hadn't known what to say to Bruce when they'd met up. What did someone say in this situation? Harvey certainly wasn't okay. Last Clark had heard he had been transferred to intensive care, and considering Batman was here and not there meant that he still wasn't allowed to visit.
Everything good Clark did want to say as well, every well wish, he knew Bruce didn't want to hear. Wouldn't listen to. Which made their time alone waiting for the others to turn up minute after minute of stifling silence.
Clark didn't blame Bruce for being spaced our that day. Or the meetings after.
It wasn't until Clark knew Harvey was out of the hospital and recovering at the manor that he slid Bruce a card. He ignored the fact it stayed unopened the entire meeting, Clark wouldn't have wanted to draw attention to it either if he'd been in Bruce's shoes. But something between them got better after that.
Better enough that Bruce called Clark up in the middle of the night again to ask him to find Harvey. "Is he not there?" Obviously otherwise Bruce wouldn't be calling brain.
"Just find him," Bruce growled.
Clark listened, finding Harvey somewhere quiet and wet, "hold on," he grabbed some sweats, drifting out of his window and zoning in on Harvey.
He found the man in the middle of the street, the rain pouring down on his face. God it looked bad. It really looked bad and Clark didn't even blame the rain for this it was just a bad injury.
Clark checked the street sign, rattling it off to Bruce as he kept an eye on Harvey. The man didn't do much, just walked. He seemed to be looking for something, the stopping and looking around him like he didn't know why he was outside in the first place.
A car pulled up about half an hour after Clark rattled off their first location. Bruce, in a silk robe, ran out the drivers seat and near tackled Harvey to the ground. Clark left as soon as Bruce started on leaving without waking him.
This was a private.
Until the fourth time Clark was rang in the middle of the night. "He's talking with someone," Clark grumbled, burrowing his face in his pillow. "I don't know what you're so worried about. He's fine-"
"Just tell me where he is!" Bruce snapped.
Clark sighed, getting out of bed to find Harvey again. "You know you can't keep doing this. Either get a tracker on him or find someone else to call. I have a life Bruce."
He got nothing in response. Not that he was expecting it.
Harvey, this time, was in a warehouse... with a bunch of drug dealers? "Er, you might want to hurry on this one."
He hung around too, happy he came as Superman as he scared the dealers off and- was promptly punched in the face by Harvey Dent.
He was happy he rolled with it, the last thing he needed was a kryptonite laden punch from Bruce because he'd broke his boyfriend's hand.
Another one came, and with it a stream of curses Clark honestly never thought he'd see from Harvey. It was honestly sort of a shock. But, then again, Clark had never really talked to the man, maybe he was always this aggressive around heroes.
"Harv!" Stopped the next punch, Bruce running in, robe on once more and latching, near dragging, Harvey away from Clark.
He didn't wait for direction after that, taking off and back to bed.
Bruce didn't phone him anymore. When Clark asked Bruce told him he'd put a tracker on Harvey.
"Is everything okay?" Clark had to ask after that.
Bruce didn't look at him as he nodded.
Clark would have left it at that but, well, he wasn't that kind of person. "You can talk to me. You know that right? I don't- I'm your friend Bruce."
Bruce kept his eyes down, Clark getting the message.
It turned out things weren't alright. They weren't alright at all.
About a month after that night Bruce came knocking on Clark's door. Clark knew it was Bruce, he'd heard the ragged breathing and thought it was one of his neighbours before his brain somehow connected the fact that Bruce wasn't always in Gotham and he knew that breathing. That heart.
He made it to the door just as the third knock sounded. Bruce didn't let the door even crack before he was barging through and latching himself onto Clark.
It wasn't a hug. It was too desperate to be a hug. Clark told himself it was one anyway, closing his door around Bruce and slowly navigating them back.
Bruce pulled back after a while, his face wet and, "What happened?" He zipped to the fridge, gently placing a bag of frozen peas on Bruce's swollen eye.
It was fresh, and struggling to stay open. "Harvey and I broke up."
Somehow he wasn't surprised. Wait. "Did he do this?" All that aggression he'd had towards Clark. Bruce wasn't invulnerable, he couldn't handle the hits like Clark could. If that man- he couldn't help wondering if this wasn't the first time. If all of this-
"It wasn't- he didn't know it was me," Bruce muttered.
He got the full story out of Bruce eventually. It was sort of surreal really, listening to Bruce talk to him. To say more than one word to him at a time.
But Bruce did, and he told Clark everything.
He told Clark about the sleepwalking before Harvey's accident. Then after, how things had grown worse. Bruce would go to sleep with Harvey by his side and wake to the bed empty, the sky still dark and no note. It would have been fine had Harvey not been injured. Had things not started to get a little weird.
Harvey started talking to himself. "I thought he had someone in the manor but," Bruce shook his head, "it was him. And why would he have someone in the bathroom with him?" He laughed.
Clark didn't find it funny. He didn't find any of this funny. Poor Bruce. No wonder he'd called Clark up.
Other things started happening. Harvey would sometimes snap at people when they were out. He'd just completely full on turn on people. People Bruce thought were their friends. Or Harvey's friends.
Then there were the clothes. More than once Bruce had found blood on Harvey's suits. Blood that wasn't Harvey's. Harvey's had discharge mixed in. This was pure blood. Familiar patterns too. Splatters like a gun had went off. A knife. Nothing self inflicted.
Then there were the calls. The people turning up asking for Harvey.
It had all come to a head tonight. Harvey... "He's on his way to Arkham right now," Bruce sniffed. He'd become a crime lord. "He always had a problem with dissociation." Probably a lot more too. The doctors would find out.
Hopefully.
"He hit Batman," Bruce said quietly. Which sort of explained his denial that Harvey had hit him. "He broke up with Bruce though."
"Oh." Harvey had broke up with Bruce, not the other way around. "I'm sorry."
Bruce's nose twisted, whatever he might have said to defend that decision drowned out by his mouth telling Clark, "I'm scared."
"I don't blame you." Harvey was a murderer. He'd been doing who knew what when he sneaked out at night and Bruce hadn't a clue. His ex boyfriend was literally being escorted to Arkham right now because the police thought he was clinically insane and couldn't stand trial. If Bruce wasn't scared Clark wouldn't think he was human.
Bruce snorted as if reading Clark's mind. "It's not even about the crime boss thing if you can believe it." He wiped his eyes, lapsing into silence for a moment before, "I think I might be going the same."
"The same?"
Bruce nodded, "I..." his voice wavered, "sometimes there's- I don't want to hurt anyone."
Oh. "You mean about the... right." His odd behaviour.
"Harv was the same. I've- it's been longer for me and I keep thinking that I'm just one knock in the head or- or- and I'll end up in," he took a shaky breath.
Clark let Bruce talk along those lines the rest of the night. Let him rage when it came. Let him scream and burrow himself back in Clark's side when he was finished. He let Bruce get it all out.
They had relocated to Clark's bed, Clark dozing as Bruce paced and wrung his hands raw a little off. "Maybe you should talk to someone," Clark suggested when Bruce halted.
He shook his head immediately. "No doctors."
"Why?" Surely Bruce understood the help a psychiatrist could give him.
"How much time do you have," Bruce sighed. "Half are mad. The other half corrupt. If they don't misdiagnosed me they'll drug me enough I become codependent and give all my money to them." He paused for breath. "Alfred always says no as well when I ask."
So Bruce had tried. "Why does Alfred say no?" Surely that man more than anyone would understand what a psychiatrist could do for Bruce.
Yet Bruce shook his head, "Apparently my dad made him promise. No psychiatrists."
Odd.
Unless... he shot another look at Bruce. Thomas Wayne was a doctor. He was also a smart man. Maybe, just maybe, he might have known something about his son that he didn't want others to.
Clark sat himself up. He thought about it for a moment. It could be risky, maybe giving Bruce false hope, so treading lightly might be best. "What about the watchtower? I know Manhunter might be okay with talking with you." In fact Manhunter was the best suggestion he'd had to date. He was a telepathic. If anyone was capable of telling reality from fiction it would be him.
Bruce seemed to realise that too as he slowed in his pacing, his arms coming up to grab each other. "Manhunter," he repeated consideringly.
"Don't say anything now," Clark remembered to say, "You're upset. Give it a few days?"
Bruce nodded, pacing a while longer before gently sitting on the empty side of the bed. "Can I stay here?" He asked quietly. "For a few hours? I don't- I don't want to go home yet."
Clark nodded, shuffling along a bit more. He called in sick to work before dropping off, Bruce snoring long before he was.
It wasn't a few days. It was actually almost a year before Bruce took Clark's suggestion of talking to Manhunter. He thought it was just Bruce's general unease with people at first. Then wanting to suss J'onn out before approaching him. Whatever it was something made Bruce call J'onn back after a meeting one day.
He found out later that it wasn't a gradual realisation. Bruce just snapped one day and realised he needed help again, and it was all down to this bright eyed kid staring up at Clark from within the bat cave.
"Hi," the kid squeaked. No more than nine Clark had to guess.
"Hey," Clark said back slowly.
There was a kid in the bat cave. Why was there a kid in the bat cave?
"Master Superman," Alfred chimed, walking as gracefully as he always did over to them. "I see you've met Master Richard."
"Dick," Richard sighed.
Clark hesitated only a moment before muttering, "I don't think you should be calling people-"
"It's his name," Alfred cut in, an amused glint in his eyes. "His preferred name and one I will endeavor to use. My apologies," he directed at Dick with a bow.
Dick giggled a little.
Dick was Bruce's ward. A mischievous little thing that had snuck down to the bat cave one night when he'd finally put two and two together and demanded Bruce make him part of the 'bat team'.
"And you thought it was a good idea?" Clark checked when he got Bruce alone.
Bruce, fresh from a shower shrugged as he towelled his hair off. "He's determined. I said no. I tried grounding him. I even threatened to find a foster family for him and he still went out. I figure tempering his want to help me isn't going to do too much harm."
Bruce took him through it. How Dick was only helping on easy cases. Little cases like theft and extortion. He only went out for an hour a night as well, Bruce making sure Dick was safely with Alfred before he went back out again to deal with the big leagues.
It didn't sound too bad when it was phrased like that. But, again, no kid should be doing this in the first place so he still wasn't fully on board. Not until he tried to keep the kid off the streets himself and found out just why Bruce had gave up.
Dick was slippery. Smart too. Clark couldn't be there all the time either so he honestly couldn't do much.
At least it got Bruce to J'onn.
Especially because, "What would you do if you thought someone was seeing something that wasn't there?" Questions like this started cropping up from Dick.
They were on the watchtower, Clark babysitting Dick since he was 'the coolest superhero to ever live', and Bruce was currently talking with J'onn. "Er," Clark thought best how to answer, "I guess just be careful. Why? Do you think they're going to hurt someone?"
Dick thought about that for a moment before shaking his head. That was interesting.
Dick, Clark had heard, had a sixth sense about danger. If he wasn't worried about Bruce then maybe Clark shouldn't be either. He was the one who lived with Bruce after all.
Then again, why was Dick asking questions like this if he wasn't worried in some way? Maybe Dick was, and he was hoping Clark would catch on without Dick explicitly stating that he was scared to be around Bruce.
"Robin?" Batman turned the corner and before Clark could blink Dick was flying onto Bruce and wrapping his arms around the Bats neck. Would a scared kid do that?
It weighed on Clark's mind. Enough that he found himself knocking on the manor more evenings than usual.
Alfred let him in every time, and sometimes he didn't see Bruce and went home with a few goodies and his wrist wishing it could cramp from all the signatures Dick made him write. Sometimes he did and he'd hang around and watch Bruce go about his daily life.
Bruce didn't seem bothered by him. In fact he liked to pretend Clark wasn't around sometimes. Other times however, found Clark here, in Bruce's room watching the man, again, go about his life. This time there with interaction.
"... said something about the docks so I went all the way there and," Bruce sighed, flopping into a chair. "It's been a long week."
"Tell me about it," Clark agreed, "Luther's out of prison which means I have him breathing down my neck every hour I go out in my suit."
They shared a commiserating look, Bruce's eyes darting off to the side for a second before refocusing on him.
"How's Dick?" Clark asked, putting the glance to the side.
"Good." Except there were a few more glances. Then, "not now mom," that just hit Clark's ears.
Mom? Like Mrs Wayne mom? Like his... dead mom? "How's things with J'onn?"
"Good," Bruce said, eyes focusing again, "better. We're making progress."
"Does he..." Clark didn't want to pry but, well, he was curious. "Do you have any answers or... not?"
Bruce twisted his mouth, "Depends on your definition of answers." That was all he said to it the rest of the night.
That was fair. Bruce was entitled to his privacy, and Clark respected that so he didn't press. He just kept an eye on it, and his phone. The latter of which got a few more late night calls throughout the years.
"I think Dick's in Metropolis. Could you keep an eye on him?"
"Alfred has me benched. I've sent you the proposal for the watchtower upgrade. You're going to have to give the speech."
"Dick's in Metropolis, could you maybe talk to him? See if he's okay?"
"I'm not feeling so well today," this last one Clark had actually called him. Dick had sent a message this morning that Bruce was spacier than usual. He'd taken a long bath too, and considering the last time Bruce had a bath it was because his leg had been broken that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Still, Clark had been surprised Bruce had just outright come out with, "Could you talk to me for a while?"
"Sure." Just what Clark didn't know, and ended up telling some tale about him, Lana and Pete back in Smallville.
He came by the manor after work because of that, Alfred letting him in like usual. Bruce was in one of the games rooms, flat on his back and dressed in his robe. That same black silk one he'd had seven years ago chasing Harvey Dent across Gotham.
It was wrapped around him like a blanket, his arms resting on top and letting Clark see the long scratches because of this. They'd broke skin,and obviously were of Bruce's own doing. They were a little painful to look at. Especially when Clark wondered if Bruce had done it on the phone to him.
"Things get a little too much sometimes," he told Clark after a while, the two of them watching some movie that was already in the player. "Thank you for picking up."
"I'll always pick up," Clark promised.
Bruce gave him a soft smile for that. A little thing that made Clark's chest go tight.
These little overloads started to get worse the more Bruce and Dick fought. It got to the point Clark had to beg Dick to stay at the tower a few nights longer so Bruce could cool off before their next blow up. Which, naturally, meant Clark was now on Dick's no speaking list.
"I'm not taking sides," Clark insisted, "I'm just worried."
"He's not glass Clark," Dick snapped, his face red and getting redder as he stood in Titans lobby, backpack on the floor, "if he wants me to stay away he'll damn well tell me himself now move!"
Clark shook his head, "Just one more night please."
He heard Dick's teeth grind. "You're not my dad, you don't tell me what to do. And you certainly don't tell me I can't go to my own freaking home."
He tried getting past Clark which, well they both knew that wasn't going to work. It just devolved from there. Enough so that Dick told on him to Bruce which meant Bruce wasn't talking to him now either.
"Just don't get involved," Barry told him at the watchtower, "I know you're in love with him and all but unless he tells you to step in it's better off leaving things alone. Dick's his kid Kal, not yours."
Clark knew that. He wasn't trying to be Dick's dad. He just, he didn't want anything bad to happen. Also, "I'm not in love with him."
Barry snorted before turning serious eyes on him. "Oh. Okay."
Barry thought he was in love with Bruce? "I'm straight." He was pretty sure.
Except a certain cousin being introduced to his life sort of told him different. "You didn't know?" Kara asked one day over waffles. Her english was still a little rusty,but even Clark understood the comment she'd made about one of the teenagers in the corner booth,and the words she'd said after that too.
"I..."
Kara blinked at him a few times before deciding, "earth is very odd," and filling him in all about krypton's naturally bisexual inhabitants and how the elimination of natural births paved the way for a happy romantic entanglement of creatures.
Bisexual then.
Bisexual.
Both women and men.
Huh.