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It started with a drugged champagne glass.
No, that wasn’t entirely accurate—if Bruce really thought about it, his first...odd interaction with Kent started a month ago, at a different gala. He was used to reporters sidling up to him, acting overly familiar even when they’d never been formally introduced. Kent was different in the sense that he hadn’t appeared to seek Bruce out at all, but he did strike up a conversation when they found themselves next to each other.
“Are you sure you should be here?” Kent had asked, voice quiet, as if trying to conceal the fact that he’d spoken at all from the people around them.
Bruce did a double-take, eyes zeroing in on the press badge pinned to his chest, declaring him to be Clark Kent of the Daily Planet. Kent seemed vaguely familiar in a way that made Bruce suspect he’d given a quote to the man before; at the very least, he was sure he’d remember sleeping with someone who looked so much like Kal-El.
Kent followed his gaze to his press badge, and, with a knowing smile, said, “That’s quite the bad leg injury you have—skiing accident, I’m sure.”
Kent shouldn’t have known that.
The injury had happened a few days before; he’d taken a bad fall when a stray shot had cut his grappling line during a fight with the League. The leg wasn’t broken per se—honestly, the pain of being stuck at another boring gala was worse than the occasional searing spike when he took a step—but it was bad enough that Bruce was still working to hide the limp.
Bruce was quite good at hiding limps. An obscure reporter from Metropolis shouldn’t have been able to see through it, unless he’d been studying Bruce’s habits for a long time, which...well, that certainly did happen.
“My leg’s fine, Mr. Kent,” Bruce replied. With a salacious smile, he added, “I just had a long night.”
“Right,” Kent replied, still smiling. “And I’m Superman.” The sentence was accompanied by a casual wink, and then Kent was gone, disappearing back into the crowd.
After that, Kent always just seemed far too aware of Bruce—though the far more worrying realization was that he’d always paid this much attention, and Bruce was only just noticing. It was seemingly innocent—usually just little glances at Bruce, accompanied by quickly-disappearing smiles whenever their eyes met, as if he was acknowledging the gesture without wanting anyone else to notice it.
But they didn’t speak again. Not until, well, the drugged champagne incident.
“It’s a benzodiazepine,” Kent whispered. He was doing that thing again, standing beside Bruce without looking at him, murmuring the words into the rim of his glass.
Bruce looked up at him. He’d known right away that someone had spiked the glass, just based on the slight change in viscosity, and he’d intended to take a sample of it back to the Cave for testing. The only way Kent would know what was in the champagne—the only way he would know if something had been placed in the champagne at all—was if he’d been involved somehow.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Bruce asked.
Kent was doing that infuriating little half-smile again, like he was delighted he could dangle this piece of information over Bruce’s head. “Just—it’s nice to see you again, Mr. Wayne.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr…” Bruce made a show of looking at his press badge again. He debated getting the name wrong on purpose, but something told him that it would only amuse Kent more. “...Kent.”
“You’re right; where are my manners?” He stuck out his hand, sun-tanned and free of callouses. “Clark Kent, Daily Planet.”
Kent had a strong grip, his hand warm against Bruce’s.
“I’d ask after your kids, but I don’t think you’d tell me,” Kent said. “Enjoy your champagne, Mr. Wayne.”
Kent was right—that was the worst part. Bruce was half-fuming throughout the entirety of his extraction of the drug, and all throughout the fifteen minute runtime of the GC-MS. He ran a second test, just to be sure, but the results came back the same. It was a benzodiazepine, likely meant to knock Bruce out for some nefarious purpose.
It didn’t make sense for Kent to spoil his own plan. Bruce almost wished it did. But Kent was obviously trying to...seduce Bruce in a way, lure him into letting his guard down—and it was Bruce he was going after, because Brucie Wayne would’ve just needed him to bat those supernaturally blue eyes of his and gesture vaguely towards a coat closet.
Further investigation was required. He debated asking Kal—not only did he hang around Lois Lane, but he’d done interviews with Kent before—but Bruce wasn’t entirely sure that was the right decision. Kal had taken Bruce’s rejection well, better than Bruce was expecting—really, he thought the man whose costume had “hope” emblazoned across it would put up more of a fight, when Bruce told him that Batman and Superman could never be together, but it was certainly easier this way—but still, it didn’t seem right to push boundaries by inviting Kal into what was strictly Gotham business.
No, this was something Bruce would do himself.
He started with Kent’s articles—at the very least, he was vocally against Luthor, and seemed to have a somewhat odd obsession with the dangers of the lead pipes that still lay under Metropolis. If ‘Clark Kent’ was a fake identity, it was either very good or it started when he was a baby—the only suspicious thing Bruce’s background check turned up was the fact that Kent was adopted as a newborn from an agency that didn’t really exist.
Even his parents checked out; Bruce couldn’t find anything suspicious about Martha and Jonathon Kent either, aside from their questionable baby acquisition—though, remembering the way Kent’s hand felt in his, it was a little odd that the son of farmers had hands so smooth.
“You should know, Father,” Damian started, one night after patrol. “I have plans this weekend to scope out the Kent farm, on your behalf.”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “No.”
Damian huffed, and Bruce got the feeling he was going to go anyway.
“How did you know about Kent?” Bruce asked next. He hadn’t mentioned it to any of the boys, and Damian hadn’t attended any of the galas where he’d be present. Kent’s sly remark about the boys came to mind, leaving a bitter taste in Bruce’s mouth.
“Todd told me.”
That was—how did Jason know? He didn’t even live here anymore.
It was the flowers that set Bruce’s teeth on edge the most.
Delivered anonymously, the courier gone before Alfred even answered the door, to the doorstep of Wayne Manor. A bouquet of mostly blue-purple flowers (heliotropes, Bruce was able to identify) with a pleasing scatter of yellow and white.
“Shall I get a vase, Master Bruce?” Alfred asked as Bruce took the bouquet from his hands.
“Not yet,” Bruce hissed, before deftly checking over the bouquet for listening devices or other such booby traps.
The bouquet was normal, as far as Bruce could tell. He begrudgingly allowed Alfred to arrange it into a vase for a ‘pop of color around here’. He scowled at it every time he passed it, sure it held some secret he hadn’t unlocked yet.
Kent had no reason to send Bruce Wayne flowers—no reason that didn’t implicate him in some complicated but undoubtedly malicious plot.
Still, if Kent was going to deliver threats to Bruce’s house, then Bruce would fight fire with fire. Wayne Enterprises had been meaning to get into the news industry, anyway.
Perry White was obviously unconvinced that Wayne would stay out of Planet affairs, just foot the bill, but he wasn’t Bruce’s target, No, Bruce’s target asked him to ope, hold the elevator, please while Bruce was on his way out.
Kent shot Bruce one of those knowing little smiles as he slipped inside the elevator doors. Bruce eyed the control panel in front of him, knowing it would be far too easy to slip and shut down the elevator, forcing them into a longer conversation.
“So,” Kent said, as the elevator doors slid shut on them. “I had an interesting conversation with your son the other day.”
Bruce was not fazed by that information. He wouldn’t let Kent see him fazed. “Which one?”
“Dick.”
He’d been expecting Damian, given the stunt with the farm. With the subtle flick of a button, the elevator jolted to a halt.
Kent looked dangerously close to beaming. “Oh no, we’ll probably be stuck here for a while. The building’s usually empty this late.”
Bruce sighed, feigning annoyance as he checked his watch. “I’ll add this elevator to the top of my people’s to-do list, then.”
Kent moved towards the doors, as if sizing up the metal opening. Cheerily, he said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Wayne, I’ll just—” With a screech, Kent forced the doors apart. “After you,” Kent said, far too proud of himself, gesturing for Bruce to make the short step down onto the second floor, offering his hand to help steady him as he did so.
Bruce was not afraid of Clark Kent. He’d gone toe-to-toe with people with superhuman strength before, and won. He’d gone up against smug people with superhuman strength.
“Well,” Bruce Wayne said coolly, refusing to take Kent’s hand. “That makes things easy.”
It made things incredibly difficult.
Kent was a meta; Bruce could’ve kicked himself for not figuring that out sooner. Some combination of super-senses might’ve accounted for how he knew there were benzodiazepines in Bruce’s champagne—he remembered Kal mentioning once that he could sometimes detect compounds by their smell. It also certainly explained why Kent’s adoption had been so sketchy.
But Bruce didn’t know the extent of his powers. He didn’t know his weaknesses. He still didn’t know what Kent wanted from him, why he was suddenly bringing all of Bruce’s attention on himself. He didn’t know why or how Kent and Dick had met, if that was even true—Dick had been deflective about the subject when Bruce asked.
Bruce went to sleep still turning it all over in his mind: Clark Kent, his odd adoption, his superhuman strength, his bright blue eyes, the way he smiled, the way his hand felt against Bruce’s, the way that little dark curl of his rested on his forehe—
Oh. Bruce’s eyes snapped open.
He knew Kal—Clark—knew it was coming just based on his expression when Bruce asked to speak to him, privately, after the League meeting.
“I thought I told you,” Bruce started, “that we couldn’t date.”
He still remembered the tension that had been so clearly building between them, the way he’d tried to convince himself that it was harmless as long as they didn’t acknowledge it. But Kal had acknowledged it—he’d leaned in for the kiss, and Bruce had brushed him off, saying that they couldn’t. Bruce had thought it would be a relief, once he wouldn’t need to deal with the inevitable weight of rejecting the man he loved, but it certainly hadn’t felt any better afterwards.
“No, you’re right—it wouldn’t be a good idea for Superman to start taking Batman out on dates,” Clark said. “So, I figured...well, nothing was stopping Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne.”
“You’re terrible at flirting.”
Clark rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t flirting—I thought you knew who I was.” He cleared his throat, the smile never quite leaving his face. “Dick was the one who told me you didn’t.”
Right. And I’m Superman. Bruce was an idiot.
“You took him out to dinner.”
“Of course. Jason and Tim, too. For Damian, well, I thought the farm would go over better.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “You know, you didn’t need to ask them for permission.”
“I’d rather take them out to dinner than wake up with Kryptonite stuck in me,” Clark replied lightheartedly. “Did you like the flowers?”
“Once I cleared them for bugs, yes.”
“Good.” Clark swallowed, suddenly looking nervous. “If you still think it’s a bad idea—”
“No.” The word came out soft, unbidden. “I think—I think it would be fine, if it’s just us.”
Clark was beaming again, and the heavy Kevlar armor around Bruce felt impossibly warm. Clark closed the gap between them, and Bruce let him take his hand, wondering why he didn’t recognize Clark from touch alone that day at the gala—it seemed like a worthy next mission at any rate.
Clark kissed the back of Bruce’s hand. “Do you still think I’m plotting against you?”
“Well, you’ve already stolen something of mine,” Bruce replied dryly.
The sentiment was unbearably sappy; his kids would never let him live it down, if they were here. But it was just them, and Clark didn’t seem to mind one bit.
“I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”
Clark sealed it with a kiss, his lips soft and warm against Bruce’s, and Bruce believed him.