Chapter Text
Life is normal. Almost painfully so. It’s boring.
Bruce can say that confidently as about a dozen businessmen fight over the opportunity to talk to him about things he probably won’t even listen to. They’re going to ask for funding for oil rigs, or ridiculous things that Wayne Enterprises has no use investing in. One of the businessmen steps forward, shoving through the crowd of briefcase-bearing suit-wearing men to approach Bruce.
“Sir, if you’d please consider–”
But the poor fool doesn’t even manage to finish his sentence before someone crashes through the glass roof of the extended lobby. As normal as it is to witness a suicide on a dull Tuesday in Gotham, Bruce can’t help but feel like something’s wrong.
Mainly, there is no way for anyone to jump off Wayne Tower or any of the buildings surrounding it due to Bruce’s meticulous suicide prevention acts that he took after a young man, once an employee of W.E, threw himself off the roof of a nearby building and landing on the sidewalk outside Wayne Tower.
It doesn’t seem to be a murder, either, for the same reason as listed above. Unless criminals are using helicopters to drop people from heights these days, which would be one hell of a concern for Bruce to have to straighten out.
There’s a chance a supervillain did it as a statement. They might be trying to get their point across, or maybe they’re trying to get a reaction from the wealthy and sheltered, but it really isn’t going to work.
It’s only as Bruce gets closer does he realise what’s really going on.
There, lying on the floor, having crashed through the ceiling in a cascade of glass, is Superman. He’s grimacing, clutching his shoulder as he tries to get up.
“Is that–”
Voices surround him.
“What’s Superman doing in Gotham?” one asks. Which is a reasonable question.
What is he doing here? He can’t be here for a visit. No, the Superman Bruce knows – the geeky reporter – is too polite to crash through windows just to make a visit.
“Bruce,” Superman gasps, and Bruce freezes as the attention in the room settles on him. “Bruce, ‘m sorry, I really tried, but–”
Bruce swallows the lump in his throat. Uh oh. This is going to be messy. He can feel it coming in his bones: a foreboding feeling of dread as the dangerous, angry storm of snapping sharks disguised as press sneak closer.
This is going to be hard to explain.
But he can’t focus on that right now, because Superman is, somehow, bleeding. He’s holding the wound so Bruce can’t properly get a grasp of what exactly is going on, but one thing is for certain: Bruce needs to get him help, ASAP.
“Bruce,” Kal repeats. His voice is hoarse and it becomes apparent that he’s struggling to breathe. “I– I need–”
“You’re okay,” Bruce says almost instinctually, kneeling down at Kal’s side and propping his head up on his knees. There’s a fairly decent crowd forming, and someone will certainly be able to do something to help, so he yells, “I need a medic!”
He’s reassured by several people taking out their phones to dial 911. At least help will be here soon. They’re in the middle of town and hopefully, Gotham’s emergency services will be willing to serve a multi-billionaire and a superhero.
“It’s okay,” he soothes, petting Kal’s head absently. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Got shot,” Kal slurs. “In the– umf– shoulder.”
“Was it–” Bruce glances around. He doesn’t necessarily want to go around advertising Kryptonite as the one thing that can truly injure Kal, but he’s not sure he’ll get a choice.
Luckily, Kal seems to understand what he’s getting at and shifts his head in a barely-there nod.
“Yuh-huh,” he mumbles, and lifts his hand from his shoulder. Sure enough, there’s a sickly green glow coming from a bullet hole deep within Kal’s shoulder. Batman wouldn’t flinch, but Bruce allows himself to wince in sympathy.
“Just hold on a while,” Bruce says, cradling Kal’s head in his hands. “Can you tell me why you came to me?”
“I…” Kal’s face tightens in pain. “‘S cause you’d help me, Bruce. I trust you.”
-
The tweets are pretty much instantaneous. They vary from confused comments to wild rumors. Bruce scrolls through them as he sits by Kal’s bedside, still in his ruffled suit, except he’s missing the blazer and tie, and his blouse is soaked in Kal’s blood.
Am I hallucinating or did Superman just crash into Wayne Tower?? One tweet reads. There’s a video of a girl filming a pigeon before letting out a gasp and panning over to catch a figure dressed in blue and red crashing through the lobby of Wayne Tower. It’s not obviously Superman, but that doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the internet and its speculations and dedication.
Kal’s fast asleep. He’s heavily drugged up, and his body is still recovering from the hour-long surgery to remove the bullet embedded in his shoulder.
Bruce knows now what happened. Villains – most likely guided by Luthor – stormed through Metropolis demanding Superman’s attention. When it was given, they returned the favor by targeting with Kryptonite until he got hit in the shoulder and supposedly disappeared from the scene. Only to smash into Wayne Tower a few minutes later.
“You’d help me, Bruce,” is what Kal had said. “I trust you.”
Bruce can’t imagine why. He’s not exactly easy to trust. He’s cold, manipulative and harsh. He struggles to socialise and he knows he’s the most unliked member of the Justice League. But for some ungodly reason, the most liked member of the League, Superman, trusts him. And went to Bruce of all people when he needed help.
Bruce has to wonder what on earth this could possibly means, but it seems like Twitter’s already decided for him. The next tweet he comes across is an outlier from the others, but it already has over a hundred thousand likes and several hundred replies.
Are Superman and Bruce Wayne dating?!
How they came to that conclusion, Bruce has no idea. He opens up the replies and cringes as he sees plenty of comments with the same idea.
I heard Superman tell Bruce he trusted him!!! One of them says.
Another clearly states, If they are they’d be the biggest power couple of this generation.
Some of the replies aren’t as open to the idea. There are those that spew hateful nonsense and just generally aren’t very kind.
Superman would never date another dude. It’s not a particularly cruel reply, but there’s a clear subtext behind it.
#Superfag is a tag that seems to pop up regularly. Bruce wrinkles his nose. Kal won’t be happy about that when he wakes up.
Bruce is too much of a slut for the GOAT Superman, one tweet claims. Bruce should feel offended, but… that was what he was aiming for when he created this persona of his.
He hears shifting of bedsheets as Kal begins to stir, and pockets his phone.
“Kal?” he whispers, trying not to startle the hero. “Are you… okay?”
All Kal manages is a simple, “Guh.”
Bruce blinks. Kal’s eyes flitter open, landing on Bruce’s face after a short while.
“B…” he breathes. His brow furrows and Bruce is sure he’s remembering what happened.
“Hey, it’s alright,” Bruce reassures, grabbing Kal before he can leap out of the bed in a hurry. “You’re weak. I doubt you can walk; you can barely keep conscious.”
“But– the villains–”
“Have been dealt with,” Bruce says. As soon as the Justice League arrived in Metropolis, the villains wimped out and tried to leave. It would’ve been funny, if they hadn’t have managed to defeat Superman so badly.
“Oh,” Kal murmurs. “Tha’s good.”
“Sure is, buddy.”
Kal’s frown is about to fade when he looks at Bruce again. His frown deepens. He looks somewhat confused and tilts his head like a puzzled puppy.
“Why’re you here?” he asks.
Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Do you want me to leave?” he says.
Kal’s eyes widen almost comically. “No!” he half-whispers, half-shouts. It would be a yell if his voice were any stronger, but he can hardly speak, so it comes out strained and sounds painful. “No, Bruce. Don’ wan’ that. But… why– you– Batman.”
Of course. Batman isn’t the same person as Bruce Wayne. At least, not to the Justice League. But to Diana and Kal, Bruce has shared his identity. He trusts them. He hopes that eventually, he might trust the rest of the League with his birth name as well, but for now, they’ll have to deal.
“You came to me,” Bruce explains softly. He’s fairly sure someone will be lurking in the corridor. There were sensors set up to alert anyone if Kal woke up, and he obviously has, so someone’s probably nearby, eavesdropping.
“I– I went to you?” Kal says. He doesn’t seem to believe himself. “Why?”
“Apparently you trust me,” Bruce mutters. Seriously, he can’t imagine why.
He loves Kal and Diana, and he knows he’d trust both of them with his life, but he’s such a paranoid bastard. He never hangs around, he’s always dodging hang-outs and he slips out of conversations at the earliest chance. He’s just not very fun to be around. So it’s awfully weird that Kal, quite possibly the biggest superhero presence in the world, trusts him.
Kal’s face softens. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I do.” A dorky grin spreads across his face.
Bruce feels his heart warm. Then he sobers up, pushing his stupid feelings aside and pulling out his phone.
“People have a lot to say about it,” he says casually.
“They do?” Kal mumbles, shuffling over to catch a glimpse of Bruce’s screen. There’s no point, since Bruce’s phone is tilted away and has a privacy screen, but Bruce passes Kal his phone to browse the various comments, good and bad.
Kal’s face is a plateau of mixed emotions as he scrolls. He starts off fairly neutral, then slips into surprise and finally, anger.
“You’re not a slut,” is the first thing he says when he hands the phone back to Bruce.
Bruce blinks in surprise. He… wasn’t expecting that reaction. Maybe something more focused on the insults directed at Superman, and not those directed at Bruce Wayne, but of course Kal would prioritise someone else’s feelings over his own.
“Kal–” he begins, but then someone new slips into the room.
“Hey there, fellas.” It’s Hal.
Bruce forces a light smile as Hal steps in. He likes Hal, he really does, but the man gives the worst nicknames known to mankind and has a ridiculous sense of humor.
And of course, Hal doesn’t know Bruce is Batman. He has no idea he’s talking to both Superman and Batman right now. In Hal’s mind, he’s chatting with Superman and Bruce Wayne, who may or may not be affiliated with Superman.
“Hi, GL,” Kal says. “Didja defeat the bad guys?”
Hal nods. “Sure did. Uh– beat ‘em up real good.”
He didn’t. The ‘bad guys’ ran away before anything could actually happen. Bruce saw it all unravel on the TV outside the operating room. But Bruce chooses not to say anything, maybe save Hal a little grace.
“You feeling good, big blue?” Hal asks.
Kal gives a dazed nod.
“He’s still in pain.” The words slip out of Bruce’s mouth before he can even help it, but oh well. Hopefully he’ll just sound like a concerned friend.
Hal falters as if he’d forgotten there were three of them in the room. He gives Bruce a once-over and then nods.
“‘Kay. I’ll get a doctor in here to see if that means anything.”
Once Hal is out of the room, Bruce turns back to Kal.
“We need to talk about this,” he says in a hushed voice. Kal opens his mouth, but Bruce shakes his head. “Not here.”
You can never know who’s listening, after all.
-
“Dad, you’re trending in all fifty states,” is the first thing Bruce hears when he walks back into the manor.
“Am I really?” he says, shedding his soggy raincoat and tugging off his shoes, placing them on the shoerack by the door.
“Yup!” Jason’s got a wide grin on his face and a tablet in hand.
“There’s already fanart,” Dick chimes in. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling on his phone while he shovels dry cereal into his mouth.
Bruce does not need to see any fanart of him and Kal. No thank you. He’s perfectly happy sticking to his normal life. Except, it isn’t very normal – not by any aspect. The billionaire bit isn’t normal, neither is the vigilantism, nor the added rumors of Bruce dating a superhero.
“Do you wanna see?” Dick says, and Bruce physically recoils in disgust before he can be shown anything. Dick snickers and returns to his cereal.
“So what’s gonna happen?” Jason asks.
“Nothing,” Bruce says tersely. He’d rather say that than admit that he has no idea what to do. There are about a million ways he could go about solving this, but he simply can’t pick. Besides, he’d rather get Clark’s opinion before doing anything drastic.
“I don’t like what they’re saying about you,” Jason says, frowning at his tablet. “They’re calling you mean names.”
“That’s enough screen time for today,” Bruce decides.