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Dating Bruce was many things. It was wild and chaotic with Brucie Wayne, the playboy billionaire. It was dangerous and chaotic with Batman, the Dark Knight. It was loving and chaotic with Bruce, the father of All The Children.
Despite all the chaos surrounding them, they were still able to hide their relationship for the first few months. It helped that the only visible difference between them being “best friends” versus “lovers” was a few extra lingering touches and some questionable sounds from behind closed doors.
Eventually their luck ran dry and The Children found out. Clark originally worried that the children wouldn’t accept him; He may be accepted as Superman: Friend of Batman, or even Clark Kent: Respectable Reporter, but as Clark: Boyfriend of their Father, he had been anxious as to how they would receive him. Contrary to Clark’s fears, however, they seemed to be rather open and positive about it all. So much so that Clark was positively giddy about his seemingly easy acceptance into their little family unit.
“Don’t let your guard down.”
“What?” Clark’s hands stalled while arranging some tinsel on the top end of the frankly ridiculous 20 foot tall Christmas tree. He looked down towards Bruce just in time to see a shiny red and silver ball whistling towards his head. With a tad bit of superspeed, Clark successfully caught the delicate ornament in one hand while the other hand whipped to and fro, catching all the stray tinsel that he had dropped in his surprise. Sighing in relief, he opened his eyes directly into a petulant glare at his smug boyfriend. “One generally assumes they wouldn’t have to be on guard around their better half.”
“Hn.” Bruce’s lips curled into the barest of smiles as he turned away. “I meant that you shouldn’t let your guard down around my kids. Catch.”
Despite the jarring correction, Clark was quickly distracted by a rapid fire volley of ornaments. Bruce flung each one to a specific area of the tree that he no doubt thought was lacking in decoration. Flying in little bouts of superspeed, Clark caught and hung each ornament—and the remaining tinsel—with a surprising amount of grace for a man who spent half his time being the Man of Steel and the other half being a bumbling reporter.
Even with the somewhat violent method of decoration, Clark loved these moments where he could be just the perfect blend of himself. Not Kal-el. Not Clark Kent. Just Clark. He loved these moments even more when he was able to share them with Bruce. Not Batman. Not Bruce Wayne. Just Bruce. As he watched the tree come together, Clark hoped he could share these moments with all of Bruce’s kids, too.
And maybe, just maybe, next year could include all of their kids. From both sides. Together.
With the last of the “base decorations” on the tree—apparently the rest will be applied later as everyone visits for the holidays, each adding their own personal decorations upon arrival—Clark finally floated down to ground level just in time to intercept his boyfriend with an inescapable hug.
“Not so fast, Sweetheart,” he said, peppering light kisses all over Bruce’s face. He reveled in the blush that earned him and the cute little wrinkle of his nose. Bruce Wayne was no stranger to the more salacious side of life, but when it came to affectionate needling for emotional information, Bruce apparently still had his reservations. “Tell me about these kids of yours.”
“Hn.” Another noncommittal grunt—unsurprising—but it’s quickly followed by a complex shift in expression as he looked back up at Clark. After the barest of moments, his expression relaxed into something soft before leaning in, speaking in gentle whispers in between even gentler kisses. “They’re my overprotective kids. You’re my new boyfriend. You’re also an investigative reporter who is more than capable of figuring it out.”
Pulling back with that ridiculous smirk and glint in his eye, Clark was starstruck by the sight before the implications finally sank in.
“Oh.”
“Hn.” Bruce slipped out of his grasp with a final peck on the cheek. “‘Oh’, indeed, Mr. Kent.”
“Wait—” Clark stumbled before raising himself off the floor to float after him. “You—Are your kids going to give me shovel talks?!”
Under pain of death, Clark would never outwardly admit to how his voice squeaked out that last part.
“Be glad they’re only going to talk to you. I had to make a lot of promises to barter them down to that.”
“Barter down to—?!”
“Clark,” Bruce barked, abruptly turning around to level Clark with a glare. “Stop following me. I have presents to wrap and the lead-lined boxes only work once the items are inside of them.”
“Oh! Right! Of course!” Clark instinctively stopped mid air and plopped down to the ground, turning his head away from Bruce and the room he’s lingering outside of. “Sorry! I’ll, uh…”
“I left a batch of wrapped presents in a sack by the roof access. Can you take them to the fortress before the kids get here? I’d like for at least some of the gifts this year to be a surprise.”
“Oh sure! I’ll get right on that!” Clark said cheerily with a signature smile.
He was somewhere over Hudson’s Bay before he realized Bruce had successfully dodged all follow up questions about the shovel talks.
In all honesty, though, even though he was a little worried about the shovel talks, he knew things wouldn’t be that bad. For all their protective qualities, the kids did generally like him, or at the very least were neutral towards him. The only exception was Damian who had a rather violent baseline to begin with. Thankfully Bruce had made a lot of progress and Damian had not only accepted the no-kill rule, but had also made great headway in respecting his father’s other rules and requests for more peaceful family interactions.
Unfortunately for Clark, the fact that fun-loving Dick was the first one to initiate a shovel talk was probably the biggest reason he failed to realize the cracks in such logic. On top of that, if he had a working sense of self-preservation he might also have realized that none of the Bats and Birds ever worked alone. Alas, Clark was not raised liked the Bats and Birds, so he falls directly into that false sense of security when Dick finally reached out to him.
On one overcast evening in Bludhaven, he called for Superman from a local rooftop for some quick help on a case he was working. Once they were done with casework, he told Clark it was time for “The (Shovel) Talk” and they literally just… Talked about it. Of course it was delivered with smiles and hugs as per usual Dick Grayson fashion, but it was to enough of a degree that it gave Clark the appropriate amount of chills he had expected from the eldest of Batman’s children.
Overall, it was one of the best shovel talks he had ever received. 10/10 would get shovel talked again… By Dick, at least.
Jason wasn’t nearly as nice, nor as direct, but his version of the talk was no less effective: A lead-lined Christmas present left on his kitchen counter, complete with a folded note stating “Open box first -RH”. Upon following the directions, Clark discovered the box contained a single bullet, coated mostly in lead lining save for a sickly green tip. Snapping the box shut, he moved back to the note. His hands shook. His stomach rolled. Neither were caused by kryptonite exposure.
“Found this in the Gotham underground. Keep your head down for now.”
In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t have considered this a threat. The bats were known to keep him up to date on kryptonite related discoveries until they got them under control. Assuming this was a legitimate case and not part of a roundabout shovel “talk”, they were likely already in the process of “confiscating” the existing stock and cutting off the supply chain.
The problem was that the bullet and note were delivered in his sleep without triggering his supersenses. The fact that the note was also extremely vague as to the actual source of the bullet was also a concern. But the most damning evidence? The backside of the note contained a few extra critiques on how the bullet could be made more “effective”.
Clark burned the note with his heat vision. Jason clearly knew a thing or two about ammunition and he didn’t want to risk any dumpster divers getting any bright ideas about improving kryptonite bullets. As for the bullet and it’s box… It found it’s way to the fortress like many of the other “dangerous substances” Superman tended to collect, but this one stayed in his personal quarters as a reminder.
With two “talks” out of the way, Clark felt much more prepared for what came next. They started out soft, but now they’re clearly ramping up the intensity. Clark was ready.
Clark was not ready.
Instead of ramping up, they decided to calm back down, making Clark feel like a guilty, overreactive jerk for being so tense when Duke finally approached him. His talk was extremely tame by bat-standards. He was a relatively recent addition to the family so he didn’t seem like he wanted to rock the boat very much. Though he did express he didn’t want to see Bruce hurt, he trusted Clark to be responsible. He also recognized that Bruce wasn’t a saint by any means; If anything, Duke wondered if they should be shovel talking Bruce to not mess things up with Clark. Overall he was a good kid and Clark was pleasantly surprised.
Unfortunately the other bat kids weren’t quite so mainstream or “tame”.
Barbara had engaged in full-on psychological warfare. After remotely hacking into Clark’s phone—which was originally setup by Bruce specifically to block his kids attempts at spying on their communications—Barbara had added a very suspicious widget to his screen. It was just the number 3 with no other text or buttons. It didn’t do anything when he tried to interact with it, nor could he remove it or uninstall it. The only reason Clark didn’t panic too much was that there was a very faint bat symbol behind the 3, only visible to Clark because his vision allows him to see the single hexadecimal difference in colour ranges on his screen. With that clue in mind, Clark had to assume the 3 referred to the number of shovel talks he had received so far. As if the widget could read his mind, the second he came to that conclusion, the number incremented to a 4 and a new text message arrived.
You should ask B for lessons on masking your expressions ;) -Babs
Message received, both literally and figuratively.
Clark inevitably found himself on edge for the next few days waiting for the next Talk. When it never arrived, he found himself anxiously checking the widget as if it would somehow give him his next clue. For another few days he was mocked by that simple little 4 permanently etched into his screen with no Talks from any of the other Bats or Birds.
Then one day it randomly turned into a 5.
Clark lost his shit.
Not externally, of course, but it happened in Lois’ presence so of course she noticed. After some very Lois-styled “support”—which involved far too much laughing, far too little helping, and even a shovel talk of her own to Clark about Clark himself not ruining his own damned happiness over a ‘silly little widget’—he eventually calmed down enough to notice a new text file on his work computer. Against his better judgement, he opened the file and scanned through the rather cryptic contents.
The file contained hundreds of lines, each one containing only a date, a time, and a location. The second he scrolled down to the last line, the program crashed and the text file was gone. It was like it had never been there in the first place.
Not dwelling too hard on the missing file itself, Clark scanned through his eidetic memories and reviewed each of the times and locations. It only took three memories for Clark to get the message: Last night on top of a Gotham rooftop where Superman kissed Batman goodnight, three nights prior where Bruce Wayne treated Clark Kent to dinner at a three Michelin star restaurant, the day before that when Clark DoorDashed Bruce his favourite cafe order when he was stuck in board meetings all day… The remaining eight hundred were overkill.
The most terrifying part of all was that most times weren’t even overt acts of PDA, they were simply things that Clark or Bruce did that made it clear that they had more-than-friends feelings for each other. Since he only had times and locations to work with he had to extrapolate a bit, but given the pattern so far it wasn’t too hard to identify a lingering touch here, a longing glance there… But worst of all? The earliest entries were of things that Clark did before he even realized he had romantic feelings for Bruce.
A ping on his phone gave him the distinct impression that the “worst of all” metric he just used was about to be redefined. He was not disappointed.
We’ll know if things change. -Tim
It was at this point that Clark really should have clued in to the fact that he could receive a Shovel Talk without any Talking actually being involved, and that Bruce bribing his kids to behave during the “talks” didn’t make them any less terrifying.
Sadly, for all his super senses, Clark still had room to learn a few harsh lessons in ambush tactics.
With a mere week left before Christmas, Clark had found himself staying over for dinner a fair bit more often as the holidays really started to take hold. Most of the kids had also moved back in, planning to stay until they rang in the new year. In Damian’s case, his school had finally let out for the holidays so he had been spending more time around the manor, cave, and Gotham in general. Despite being around the most often, though, Clark couldn’t help but notice that their interactions had been decidedly normal, if not down right uneventful.
For all his lack of self-preservation, even he realized that Damian’s lack of “shovel talk” by this point was suspicious.
“Um… Bruce?” Clark said tentatively as he floated down the stairs to the cave. He couldn’t hear Bruce’s heartbeat, but that wasn’t uncommon if he was already wearing the batsuit before going out on patrol. “I was getting a little concerned about, uh… You know, talking with the kids? More specifically—Damian!”
Clark didn’t yelp when the chair swiveled around to reveal the boy in question, fully suited up in his Robin gear. He didn’t. Seriously.
“Father has already left for patrol, Kent,” Damian snapped, though his tone was actually fairly polite compared to his baseline behaviours. Yet another reason to be concerned. “Though I presume that you are actually more interested in talking with me, if your recent discussions with the other residents of this household are anything to go by.”
“Ah… Haha… Yeah,” Clark chuckled awkwardly while he scratched the back of his neck. “Does that mean it’s your turn to…?”
“Tche”—Clark had at least half a mind to silently admire the boy’s ability to deliver such a clear eye roll despite the Robin face mask—“don’t take me for such a simpleton, Kent. My father has no need for me to talk to you on his behalf. That being said, I have been offered a proposition that I find myself loathe to pass up.”
Damian swiveled back towards the monitors. After a few clickety clacks of keys, the patrol programs rearranged themselves to a more compact view off the side of the main screen and dimmed down to be less eye catching. By the time Damian turned back to Clark, the main screen appeared to be showing a paused nature documentary.
“Father has offered to temporarily increase my weekly patrol limit in the near future if I agree to forgo such childish talks and instead engage with you in topics of potential mutual hobbies and interests. Considering your upbringing in animal husbandry and your currently sizable extraterrestrial zoo within your fortress, I take it you would be amenable to watching a nature documentary on wolves?”
Once again showing a woefully inept sense of self-preservation, Clark just barely stopped himself from smiling and cooing at the murderous child vigilante in front of him. For all of Damian’s behavioural oddities and advanced speech patterns, this was clearly a young boy reaching out to an adult guardian in an attempt to bond over a shared love of animals. Clearly.
Besides, he had a point about the whole “Batman could end Superman himself if he really wanted to”. Shovel talks at that point were hardly necessary.
“Of course, kiddo!”—Oops, definitely not a ‘kiddo’, got it—“Ahem, I mean, uh…”
“In that case, would you please retrieve the theater snacks from Pennyworth? He is apparently attending to some delicate baked goods in preparation for the holiday festivities and is not be able to deliver them himself.”
“On it!”
With far too much awkwardness and superspeed, Clark dashed back up the stairs before slowing to a normal speed and walking his way to the kitchen. If Alfred was working on delicate baked goods, rushes of displaced wind would hardly be polite of him.
Just as promised, and with impeccable timing on Alfred’s part, Clark arrived just as the last few pops of kernels went off in their fancy popcorn machine. Of course the Wayne Estate wouldn’t have something as pedestrian as microwave popcorn bags.
“Do you want any help?” Clark asked. While he rarely ever got to help, he would be loathe to miss an offer and disappoint his dear old Ma.
“Thank you for the offer, Master Clark, but if you wouldn’t mind staying there while I finish up I would appreciate it. Delicate pastries in the oven, after all,” Alfred responded politely as he put the final touches on the popcorn.
Despite all the high end decorum of the manor, Clark had discovered that when it came to things like popcorn, the Wayne family could be rather… Experimental in their preferred flavours. Though maybe it had less to do with actual experimentation and more to do with trying to cater to a dozen or so different individuals with different preferences. As an only child raised in a household of limited income, Clark wouldn’t know what level of variation was considered ‘normal’ so he just assumed it was one of those ‘rich people things’.
It was because of this assumption that Clark didn’t immediately understand the reason for the nauseating green glow of the popcorn when it was finally passed to him.
“My apologies, Master Clark, but Damian has developed a strong preference for pickle flavouring as of late.”
Clark gulped as he hesitantly reached out for the popcorn. On one hand, he was relieved to find that the nausea was purely psychosomatic and not at all a reaction to actual kryptonite. On the other hand, even he knew that pickle flavoured popcorn powder wasn’t supposed to glow green.
“Aha… This wouldn’t happen to be your contribution to the ‘shovel talks’, would it…?”
“Heavens, no, Master Clark,” Alfred responded with equal parts shock and innocence. “Sadly my grave digging days are far behind me so I have no need for shovels, figurative or otherwise. My contribution is simply a trusty old shotgun.” Alfred tipped his head towards the kitchen island that Clark was standing beside.
After a few seconds of mounting dread, Clark finally turned towards the counter and used his x-ray vision to reveal the well-concealed weapon. The weapon with conspicuously lead-lined shotgun rounds. The weapon whose barrel was pointed directly at Clark’s nether-regions.
“I’ve had the pleasure of talking at length with Master Jason about his recent ammunition casework. It would appear his ‘spoils of war’ have been rather fruitful for both of us.” Alfred smiled mischievously. “Now, if you don’t mind, Master Clark, my timer is about to go off and I believe you have a showing to catch with my youngest grandson?”
“Y-Yeah, I uh…” Clark stuttered, his mind still not quite able to process the full extent of the danger he was in. “I better get going.”
He didn’t squeak. He didn’t leave before he got a response. He didn’t even use superspeed. He didn’t.
Back down in the cave, he found Damian sitting in front of the monitors with the screens still set to show the documentary alongside the mini patrol overlays. There also appeared to be another chair beside Damian, empty and obviously intended for Clark. As he approached, he heard Damian mumbling something into his ear piece, though he tried his best not to eavesdrop.
“—Fine. Understood.” A slight increase in tension across his small shoulders tells Clark that his approach had been discovered. “I’ll keep you posted. Robin out.”
“Was that Bruce?” Clark asked casually as he lowered himself into the proffered chair.
If Bruce was already out on patrol, Damian being on the computer probably meant they’ll be multitasking if any warning signals go off while they’re watching the documentary. Not a perfect scenario for bonding, but he’ll take what he can get, and honestly… Clark could use a little less direct attention right about now anyways.
“Father was asking for updates on the situation—” Damian waved vaguely at the monitors before them, which Clark took to mean the patrol overlays. “—which, as you can no doubt see, is rather uneventful so far.”
“Well, a quiet night is a good night! In fact, one might even say it’s a rather Silent Night, hm?” Clark said, attempting to lighten the mood with an admittedly bad joke, an eyebrow wiggle, and an offer of popcorn that may double as a tentative shield between him and the deadpan glaring look of disgust and second-hand embarrassment he was receiving from Bruce’s youngest.
Thankfully, an ill-advised second attempt at a popcorn offer and a cheesy smile somehow resulted in Damian’s glare subsiding. The boy took some of the popcorn—without even flinching at the green glow or sharp vinegary taste—hit play and leaned back into his seat, mumbling things in a language Clark was probably going to have to learn one of these days.
Despite the rocky start, the documentary got under way and Clark quickly found himself enjoying the rather companionable silence. Once things really started moving along in the plot, Damian started to show little bursts of excitement, adding in wolf facts of his own to supplement the provided narration.
The more he watched, the more he found himself getting invested in the “characters” the production crew had made out of the collected footage. The documentary started out broadly describing Yellowstone National Park’s wolf population, which was made up of a large donation of Canadian wolves after they had hunted the native population to extinction. From there, they centered on a singular female wolf with a somewhat rare all-white fur coat, which they referred to unironically as White Wolf.
The story followed White Wolf and her mate, Grey Wolf, alongside their pups: a single female yearling with the same white coat pattern as her mother—eventually referred to as White Beta—and a litter of 2 brand new pups. Together, they made up the Hayden Pack, named after the Hayden Valley region within Yellowstone Park.
With the stage set, their story was told at a relaxing and leisurely pace. Adorable clips of uncoordinated puppies had Clark cooing and squirming in his seat. His behaviour was clearly embarrassing Damian to no end, but as the story went on and as Clark listened to Damian add more supplementary narrative, he started to relax a bit more and became less bothered by Clark’s antics.
Eventually, White Beta grew up to have a litter of her own with a black wolf from the neighbouring Mollie's Pack. Due to pack rivalries, the Hayden Pack rejected the black wolf, but accepted White Beta and her litter back into their family unit. It was at this point that Damian seemed to get much more animated and detailed in his wolf facts: Apparently, especially within Yellowstone Park, wolves of different fur colours were more likely to become mates due to some sort of immune system boost from the varied genetics. This instinctual preference seemed to explain why the White Beta likely chose the Black Wolf as a mate despite being from a rival pack.
The older the wolves got, the more the documentary started to introduce details about the Mollie's Pack. They were a larger pack, made up mostly of wolves with darker fur colours, ranging across varying shades of grey while almost half of them were pure black. In fact, the dark colours were so prominent in comparison to the Hayden Pack, that it reminded Clark of the Bats and Birds. Just like their Gotham vigilante counterparts, the Mollie's Pack appeared to prefer darker colours and have a fierce sense of territoriality.
It was at this point that Clark really should have noticed something bad was going to happen.
Instead, the more Clark learned about White Beta and her separation from Black Wolf, the more he thought about how sad it must have been to be separated due to family rivalries like that. If it weren’t for how cute and fluffy the last 30 minutes of footage had been, Clark would have paid more attention to the almost Shakespearian undertone to it. If he weren’t so engrossed in “bonding with his boyfriend’s son over shared interests” he might have noticed the rather predatory gaze in said son’s eyes.
So in the end, Clark really shouldn’t have been surprised when the Mollie's Pack raced in during the last few minutes of the documentary to kill White Wolf and eat her mate Grey Wolf. They literally ate him. Ate. Him. Clark can’t unsee the Mollie's Pack running off with Grey Wolf’s disembodied leg.
“Nature can be quite cruel,” Damian said with a far too elated tone in his voice. Clark jolted at the sound and was deeply unsettled by the look Damian was giving him. “While it would be naive to assume that wolf social behaviours directly mirror that of humans, it’s generally considered common knowledge that wolves are highly social beings and are capable of experiencing very deep levels of grief, sadness, and even mourning. For White Beta to be separated from Black Wolf, raising her pups without him, that must have been hard for her to accept. If one were more of a romantic, they might even go as far as to say both she and Black Wolf were heartbroken, wouldn’t you say?”
Clark gulped. He didn’t quite understand the exact parallels in this situation yet, but the picture was rapidly becoming more clear than he was truly comfortable with.
“If you think about it, the Mollie's Pack has quite a few reasons to hate the Hayden Pack after what they did to Black Wolf. They might even hate them to the point of justifying total and complete pack annihilation.”
Suddenly the parallels between the Mollie's Pack and the Bats is far less coincidental. It was terrifying. Clark was terrified. Why couldn’t Bruce’s kids just give normal shovel talks by talking like normal people?!
“Then again, for someone such as yourself—Superman, commonly considered a beacon of hope, the White Knight of Metropolis, if you will—perhaps you’re simply not familiar with what it’s like to be in the Mollie's situation?” Damian stood up from his chair. The boy, barely five feet tall, loomed over Clark. He could feel Damian’s shadow cast across his face as he stepped between Clark and the monitors. Damian slowly leaned forward, dropping his voice just ever so slightly more as he grabbed a glowing green piece of popcorn and brought it to his mouth. “A large pack of territorial predators, cloaked in the black of night, driven by an instinctual, protective need to avenge their own.”
Crunch.
Clark didn’t yelp. He didn’t. He flat out whimpered.
He shrieked when Steph let out a loud “Boo!” from behind him.
From somewhere up in the stalactites, Clark clutched his emotional support popcorn bowl while he listened to Stephanie collapse with laughter. Damian scoffed and said something about preferring to involve Titus. After some unintelligible back and forth chatter, he stalked away towards the vehicle parkade with a barely functioning Spoiler in tow. Clark could only assume they were going out to join Bruce on patrol.
It was only after the echoing laughter finally died down that he floated back to ground level, where Cass appeared to be waiting for him.
“Hi Cass,” Clark said sheepishly. She was no doubt there alongside Steph, but apparently she stayed behind to talk to him. Adding in some sign language, since he knew she generally prefered to use it for longer talks, he continued, “I assume that was Damian and Steph’s version of ‘the talk’, so uh… Does that mean you’re here to…?”
Cass simply shakes her head and smiles while signing back, “Assassins don’t warn their targets.”
With a quick wave, Cass bids him adieu and runs off to follow the other two for patrol.
At this point, when Bruce appeared at his shoulder, dressed in casual wear and peering into his now-empty popcorn bowl, Clark didn’t even flinch.
“I told you not to let your guard down.”
Clark whimpered and replaced his emotional support popcorn bowl with his ridiculous boyfriend. Bruce at least had the decency to console him properly after everything he’d been through.
“Your kids hate me,” he mumbled into his boyfriend’s neck. He didn’t even care if he was being dramatic anymore. He deserved some pampering at this point.
“Alright, cowboy, let’s get you settled back down.” Bruce gently guided him back to his chair, taking Damian’s spot at the monitors. After they got settled, Bruce looked softly at Clark and caressed his cheek until he got the eye contact he’s looking for. “Clark. They love you. I love you. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“Your youngest just threatened to tear me limb from limb and eat me.” Clark pouted angrily and wasn’t even ashamed of it.
“He did. He also respected all the boundaries that I set out for him after explaining how devastated I would be if he managed to chase you away.”
“I don’t know if I should be shocked, happy, or devastated that you emotionally blackmailed your own son to protect me.” Clark shot another pout his way, this time more playfully. He truly was happy that he’s finally made it through all the shovel talks, though. “Wait… How did you know he respected all your boundaries?”
Bruce just gave him a little smirk and a peck on the cheek, turning his head just so to reveal the earpiece he was wearing. Once he pulled away, he tapped a few keys on the computer and a series of video feeds showed up, giving a very detailed view of where Clark and Bruce were currently sitting.
“I’ve been upstairs the whole time. You were never truly in any danger.”
“…Steph and Cass?”
“…Plan B.”
“…And if they defected to Damian’s side?”
Bruce barked out a laugh. “And you call me paranoid.”
Clark didn’t buy it. He stared back at Bruce, raising a single skeptical eyebrow.
Bruce sighed and tapped a short code into his earpiece, instantly illuminating the cave with high intensity sun lamps. “Just in case you needed a head start.”
“I love you, you terrifying bastard.”
“Language, Mr. Kent. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Oh shoosh you.”
Clark drew him in for a kiss, each of them chuckling into the other’s lips as they enjoyed the insanity of their domestic lives.
With the sun lamps still on, the flush of energy finally started to revitalize Clark, easing away all the tension and weariness from the latest shovel “talk”. Soon, weariness was replaced by an excited energy that was all too willing to fuel his exploratory hands over his handsome boyfriend.
“Speaking of which, Mr. Wayne, how about we celebrate the end of the shovel talks? I think I’ve earned a reward for surviving the Gotham Gauntlet, don’t you?”
“Gotham Gauntlet?” Bruce hummed in consideration, teasing Clark as he went. Never quite denying Clark’s advances, but being surprisingly slippery for a man usually all too eager to get a little frisky. “If it’s Gotham we’re talking about, you might not be done just yet.”
The final peck that Bruce left on his lips tasted like a sour mix of Shovel Talk Terror and a nasty case of blue balls.
“Here,” Bruce pulled a Christmas present out from who knows where and pressed it to Clark’s chest, pushing himself back away from Clark and into his own seat once more. “A gift from Selina.”
“…Your criminal ex-girlfriend?” Clark asked dubiously.
“Who is also my good friend,” Bruce corrected with a knowing look in his eyes. Complicated or not, Bruce and Selina would always be friends of some sort, and apparently that meant she was still a candidate for providing shovel talks. “…And also out of town for an extended period of time, so she sends her regrets at not being able to deliver the message in person.”
“Yay me,” Clark said, unable to mask the sarcasm in his voice. Taking a deep breath, he finally looked down at the gift Bruce handed him only to notice it had already been opened before. “Uh, Bruce?”
“Had to check it for booby traps,” he responded smoothly. Clark was barely halfway through a proper chuckle when he realized that Bruce was being serious. “I didn’t want to risk a repeat of Talia’s gift.”
“Bruce.” Clark leveled a horrified stare at his lovable yet evasive boyfriend. “I never got a gift from Talia.”
“That’s because I intercepted it in time.”
Clark stared at him. Bruce stared back.
Clark decided not to ask.
Returning his attention to the Batman-vetted gift from Catwoman, he (re)opened the wrapping paper to see a DVD case titled “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”.
Ignoring Clark’s whimper, Bruce deftly removed the DVD from it’s case and popped it into the computer, turning off the sun lamps while he was at it. At the very least, Bruce had the decency to cuddle Clark and not comment on his further whines and whimpers as they watched Scott Pilgrim battle his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes.