Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne had a problem.
Actually, Bruce Wayne had many problems, as anyone who knew him could attest. But one in particular had recently come to the forefront, and now that he’d identified it, he knew it wasn’t going away any time soon.
It began on an unassuming day; a day like any other, as far as Bruce Wayne was concerned. Anyone else might have noted that it was Valentine’s Day, but Bruce had not been in a relationship that consisted of more than a string of casual hookups in his entire life, so this meant nothing to him.
“Sometimes I wish I knew who you were.”
They were standing on a rooftop in Metropolis after teaming up to defeat Lex Luthor and the Joker, who got along like oil and water yet persisted in working together every now and then for reasons Bruce couldn’t begin to fathom. This was normal for Batman and Superman. All their conversations took place on rooftops after a successful joint mission. Only most of the time, these conversations consisted of mission-related small talk, maybe an argument over who had risked their life unnecessarily to save who, yelling things at each other along the lines of “What were you thinking?” and “I had it under control!” Not bombshells like “Sometimes I wish I knew who you were.”
In fact, until then, Superman and Batman had expertly avoided the subject of secret identities. They knew virtually nothing about each other. Bruce didn’t know what name Superman went by in his everyday life, what job he worked to pay the bills, whether he was married or had any kids, where he’d grown up and gone to school and what his hobbies were. He didn’t want to know any of these things, any more than he wanted Superman to know them about him. The more you knew about someone, the easier it was to get attached, and attachment was a vulnerability Bruce couldn’t afford in his line of work. Both of their jobs were easier if they could pretend around each other that Batman and Superman were all they were.
“You know everything you need to know,” Bruce told Superman tersely, thinking he’d better cut this line of inquiry off before Superman got it into his head that they were going to start sharing secrets. “And so do I.”
“Maybe,” Superman said, unfazed by Bruce’s threatening Batman voice. That particular voice had stopped working after the third or fourth or seventieth time Bruce used it on him. “But don’t tell me you’re never curious.”
Of course Bruce was curious. Solving mysteries was what he did, and Superman’s secret identity was a tantalizing mystery indeed. But he restrained himself, because he respected Superman’s privacy, just as he expected Superman to respect his. He was under no illusions about the security of his secret identity; he knew it would take Superman all of fifteen minutes to figure out Batman was Bruce Wayne if he really applied himself, lead-lined cowl be damned. Between his x-ray vision and his other super senses, Superman was a difficult guy to keep things from. The only reason he hadn’t used those super senses to spy on Bruce’s private life, and Bruce hadn’t used his considerable investigative skills to look into Superman’s background, was that the two of them had an unspoken agreement: No looking into each other’s secret identities. Period.
“What you do in your off time is none of my business,” was all Bruce said.
“Come on. You don’t have any theories?” Superman goaded him. He got like this, sometimes, when he wanted to have a “real” conversation and Bruce wasn’t cooperating.
To this, Bruce said nothing, because again, yes, of course he had theories, but he wasn’t going to share. Superman took Bruce’s silence as a sign to keep talking, which was an annoying habit he had. “Well, I have a theory,” he said. Bruce listened despite himself, thinking, Oh, this’ll be good. What theories would Superman have about Batman’s identity?
“I think you’re probably a cop,” Superman continued, “Fed up with all the corruption and bureaucracy, striking out on your own under the cover of night to bring real justice to Gotham.” He shrugged, then conceded, “Maybe I watched too many cop movies growing up.”
This was one of the more popular theories in the Reddit conspiracy threads. Batman is a cop. Batman is a computer genius who used to work for CYBERCOM / the NSA / the CIA. Batman is Commissioner Gordon. Never Batman is Bruce Wayne. Bruce made sure of that.
Something about Superman sharing his amateurish theory tickled Bruce’s competitive streak. (Looking back, he realized Superman had probably done that on purpose.) Was that the best Superman could do? Well, he could do one better.
“You grew up somewhere rural,” Bruce said dispassionately, with the confidence of a man who was never wrong. “You’re single. No kids. Boring office job. Accounting, maybe, or sales. You’re probably friends with all your coworkers.” He added, only a little bitterly, “You’re probably friends with everyone you meet.”
That was the trouble with Superman: He was impossible not to like. Bruce had tried. But despite all his efforts to maintain a chilly distance between them, his working relationship with Superman had transformed, over their first few years of knowing each other, from open hostility to regular cooperation. At first, he’d simply had to recognize that there were some situations in which two heads were better than one, or in which Superman’s frankly excessive array of superpowers was… useful. But before long, it became more than that. Much more.
It happened gradually, so gradually that by the time Bruce realized what was going on, it was too late to do anything about it. He started looking forward to their collaborations. Their conversations shifted from constant arguments to something approaching banter, even bordering on flirtation. Bruce was smiling more than he used to, laughing occasionally.
Superman’s friendship snuck up on Bruce, eroding the walls he’d put up around himself like the relentless waves of the ocean. He was irresistibly charming, and endlessly accommodating, and even Bruce would later have to admit to himself that he hadn’t stood a fucking chance.
If it was going to be anyone, Bruce should have known it would be Superman.
“See?” Superman said, looking smug about getting Bruce to open up and share his theories. “I knew you had ideas.” He paused, thought for a moment, then added another of his own: “I bet you’re one of those people who guesses how the movie’s going to end and ruins it for everyone else.” A second thoughtful pause, then, “I bet you were that kid in school who never studied but still got straight A’s.”
“You’re an Eagle Scout,” Bruce countered, “And you never had a rebellious teenage phase.”
Superman laughed, which was how Bruce knew he’d gotten that second one right on the nose. “You definitely did,” Superman retorted. “You probably learned how to be so stealthy by sneaking out of your parents’ house every night.”
The mention of his parents was exactly what Bruce needed to snap him back to reality, and out of this fantasy world where he and Superman talked about their secret identities like they might one day actually reveal them to each other. “None of this matters,” he growled, aware that he’d caught Superman off guard with his abrupt switch in demeanor, ignoring that hurt little expression Superman always got when Bruce rebuffed his attempts at breaking the thick layer of ice between them. “Anything that’s not mission-critical, I don’t need to know. It’s better for both of us that way.” He huffed a sigh, added under his breath, “Keeps things from getting complicated.”
Superman turned away, appearing to study the street more than twenty stories below, the yellow taxis crawling through traffic, the throngs of pedestrians crowding the sidewalks and jaywalking across the streets. “Right,” he said, with a little chuckle like he was telling an inside joke. “A little late for that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Superman looked up, confusion plain on his features. “You don’t know?” he said, almost sounding amused. “All these things you’ve deduced about me – you got some of them right, by the way, I’ll give you that – and you don’t know?”
“What don’t I know?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not mission-critical.”
Not one to appreciate having his own words used against him, Bruce scowled.
Bruce would never admit it, but Superman had been right when he’d said it was too late for things not to be complicated between them. Master of denial though he may have been, not even Bruce could go on forever without realizing what he’d gotten himself into with the Man of Steel. He cared about Superman. Bruce actually gave a shit whether Superman lived or died, and not just because the world needed Superman, but because he could no longer imagine his own life without Superman in it. And wasn’t that a terrifying thought. Wasn’t that exactly the sort of vulnerability Bruce had been trying to avoid.
Under any other circumstances, this would have been an easy problem to fix. Bruce Wayne was practiced at disentangling himself from inconvenient attachments: an oversharing colleague, a one-night stand with expectations of a lasting relationship. But he couldn’t just avoid Superman. Sooner or later, a threat would arise that neither of them could face on their own, and they’d have to work together. So Bruce had defaulted to his backup attachment avoidance strategy: emotional repression. Pretend he hadn’t started caring. Act like nothing had changed. Simple. Easy. He’d done it a thousand times.
Until Superman decided to throw a wrench in the works and ruin everything for both of them.
“What makes you think I’m single?” he asked, and Bruce looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but answered nonetheless.
“What I meant is you’re clearly not in a long-term relationship,” Bruce clarified. “If you were, you’d probably try at least a little harder not to die.”
Superman nodded, taking Bruce’s point. “I am,” he added after a long stretch of silence, meeting Bruce’s eyes. “Single.”
Bruce balked.
Now, Bruce Wayne was hardly the master of all social situations, but this was one area where he had plenty of experience. He knew how to recognize when someone was attracted to him. You didn’t have as many successful one-night stands as he had without learning to interpret those signs. He simply hadn’t expected to pick up those signs from Superman. The allusion to something “complicated,” the reassurance that he was single, and that intense look in his eyes. It all added up to something dangerous. Bruce felt, all at once, like this part of his life that he’d built such careful walls around to keep it contained was spinning out of control, and he didn’t know how to put everything back into the Pandora’s box Superman had unwittingly opened.
Superman was attracted to him. If Bruce were anyone else, this would have been incredibly convenient, because goddamn, was Bruce just as attracted to him. And he didn’t want to put together the attraction he’d experienced from day one and the inconvenient feelings he’d developed over time, because that would force him to acknowledge that what he felt for Superman was more than just friendship.
Instead of counting himself lucky that his feelings were apparently requited, Bruce glared like Superman had just mortally offended him. “Is that an invitation? Did you not hear what I just said about keeping things from getting complicated?” He ignored the cauldron of emotions this sudden realization had stirred within him and focused only on his anger. He was angry at himself, for feeling the way he did. He was angry at Superman, for causing those feelings. Anger, he’d always found, was easier to feel than whatever the alternative was.
“I thought you knew,” Superman said, like he hadn’t just turned Bruce’s world upside down. “You are the World’s Greatest Detective.”
Bruce chose to ignore Superman’s insinuation that he’d failed to pick up on some obvious hints, whatever those might have been. Maybe he had, but the point was that he hadn’t been looking for hints of that nature from Superman. “You don’t even know what I look like,” he instead pointed out. “You don’t know how old I am. You don’t know my name.”
“If you’re not interested, you’re not interested. I can handle rejection. Unless you are interested, but you’re convinced it would be too ‘complicated.’”
Bruce hadn’t stopped glaring, and Superman hadn’t stopped staring him down. It was only then that Bruce noticed how close they were. Normally, Bruce’s personal space was inviolable, but over the years Superman had broken down each and every one of his barriers; it was no surprise that he’d crept past this one as well. It would take so little effort for one of them to lean forward, a voice in the back of Bruce’s mind provided treacherously, to close the meager distance between them, toss their reservations out the window, and surrender to the possibility of the heat and frisson that hung in the air between them.
“I’m not interested,” Bruce said immediately. A lie. It didn’t matter, because what he said next was the truth. “It would be too complicated. And I’m not talking about this with you anymore.”
“Got it. I won’t mention it again.” Superman smiled like it was no skin off his back, and Bruce almost felt a little guilty, but what the fuck else was he supposed to do in this situation? His relationship with Superman had already progressed further than he’d ever intended. It didn’t matter what either of them felt or what they wanted. Nothing could happen between them. And it wouldn’t. Bruce wouldn’t let it.