Chapter Text
Bruce sat up straight, legs folded into a half-lotus, shoulders back, arms loose, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed. He breathed deeply, deliberately. Empty the mind, he told himself, and clear away all thought. Empty the mind, and clear away all thought. He relaxed his shoulders slowly and felt some of the tension drain from his neck and back. Breathe in, breathe out.
Eventually, his mind followed his body into a calmer state. He’d been off-balance for the past six weeks. Every attempt to compensate for it had failed or backfired. He felt as if he was playing a game whose rules he only half-understood. Worse, he was losing the game to someone who didn’t even know they were playing. He’d almost forgotten how much he hated the sense of floundering blindly through a scenario. He prepared for a reason. But he didn’t remember it affecting him this badly before. He was supposed to be better than this. Batman needed to be better than this.
Breathe in, breathe out. He needed to be able to assess the situation impartially, rationally. Empty the mind. He needed to be able to trust his own judgment. Breathe in, breathe out. He needed to be able to consider all the angles. Clear away all thought. He needed to not be in a complete disarray. Breathe in, breathe out.
After a few minutes, he was on firmer ground. He could do this. All riddles had answers. All problems had solutions. They might not be especially pleasant solutions, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Breathe in, breathe out. The measures he’d taken so far had been insufficient. He needed to re-examine the issue, start again from the bones of it. Reduce it to its most basic form. Breathe in, breathe out.
He was intensely attracted to Superman. It was a distraction he couldn’t afford. Breathe in, breathe out. His distraction was a disadvantage the League couldn’t afford. A disadvantaged League was something the world couldn’t afford. Breathe in, breathe out.
Bruce swallowed and shifted position incrementally. It was hardly the first time he’d been attracted to someone with whom he had no chance, or to someone with whom a tryst would be wildly inadvisable. Superman--straight, monogamous, in a committed relationship, fellow League-member Clark--was perhaps the most ridiculously unattainable, inadvisable one yet, but no, not by any stretch of the imagination was he the first. Breathe in, breathe out. The best prescription had always been distance. Out of sight, out of mind. Minimize contact and wait for it to pass. It was a tactic that had failed rather spectacularly this time around. Breathe in, breathe out.
It had been six weeks since a missile gone stray during a fight had made it painfully obvious that he needed to rein in his emotions. He’d been in no real danger. He’d have made it out of the blast radius in time. He had no doubt whatsoever about that. But then Superman had been there, blocking his path and shielding him from the explosion, and it had suddenly been a moot point. Breathe in, breathe out. If the force of it hadn’t broken the concrete that Clark had braced himself against, closing the last few inches between them and flattening them together in a strange parody of a lover’s embrace, he might have continued deluding himself until it was too late to extricate himself from the situation. In a way, it had been fortunate. In another way, it had been disastrous.
Six weeks since the battle had ground to a halt for a handful of seconds, suspended by the warm breath on his neck, the impossibly perfect body on top of his, holding him down, and the searching, tender concern in blue eyes scarcely two inches from his own. Breathe in, breathe out. If there had ever been a day he’d regretted putting the white lenses in the mask to conceal his eyes, that day had not been it. He’d barely managed a convincing growl and a quick shove to dislodge the alien. The exasperated “You’re welcome!” called at his back as he retreated, saved by the fight they were still in the middle of, had been welcome confirmation that Superman, for all his heightened senses, had either not noticed or had misinterpreted the effect he’d had on him.
Six weeks of carefully orchestrating teams and missions and investigations that kept Clark out of his sight as much as possible without quitting the League all together. It shouldn’t have been difficult. He was, after all, the only member without superpowers. He and Wally were the only two with cities to take care of, and Central City needed a lot less taking care of than Gotham. Superman being Superman meant that he usually needed someone with quick wits more than he needed a brute-force back-up; Batman was better, but Batman was not necessary. Even Shayera, with her methodical approach balancing her hot-headedness, and Wally, with his capacity for sheer physical speed doing something to compensate for his impulsiveness, were situationally-appropriate partners for the man of steel.
Six weeks of unexpected resistance from the rest of the League, primarily from Clark himself. Breathe in, breathe out. He’d suspect Clark was toying with him, if he weren’t dead certain that the man was incapable of it. And, of course, he’d have made a point of hiding his disappointment more effectively if he’d had ulterior motives. Breathe in, breathe out. The motives for the rest of the team’s subtle mutiny, he was less sure of. It wasn’t that they were arguing about assignments. That, he could have handled. That, he could have rebutted. But no, the logistical and tactical advantages he was relying on to keep anyone from openly questioning him did the trick. They were just...off.
Six weeks of his teammates being inexplicably less efficient and more irritable, in spite of his meticulous planning. They all liked, respected, and worked well with Superman, and Clark certainly wasn’t grumbling about the extra work. He’d taken care to match everyone with their preferred partner when feasible. Breathe in, breathe out. Nothing should have changed. But if it wasn’t Diana--who never complained when it was Bruce--griping about pulling surveillance duty with Clark, it was Shayera--whose self-possession was perfect in other situations--’accidentally’ knocking his files off the table with a wing on her way out with John. If it wasn’t John asking--for the fifth time, with a bite to his tone--if he was sure he didn’t need to borrow the Flash, since Gotham seemed to be keeping him awfully busy lately, it was J’onn asking if he wanted to “talk about it” in that odd way he had when he already knew the answer was no, and what he wanted to communicate was less the offer and more the fact that he wasn’t going to stop offering until Batman either took him up on it or ceased to need it. And if it wasn’t any of that, it was Clark simply showing up.
Six weeks of watching Superman periodically wander Gotham, his reporter’s notebook out and his artless-yokel persona firmly in place, and being unable to tell him to get the hell out without tipping his hand. It was aggravating in the extreme. Breathe in, breathe out. He forced himself to relax again.
Even if he hadn’t been able to figure out Superman’s civilian identity before, seeing Clark Kent roving Gotham’s worst districts with impunity would have been more than enough to put two and two together. How Luthor hadn’t managed it in all the years he’d been fighting the Kryptonian, Bruce would never know. For all the good having the information did him, he thought bitterly. Breathe in, breathe out. Unless he wanted to draw extra attention to Clark and put an even bigger target on his back than his tenuous association with Superman already had, the Bat could hardly be seen swooping down and personally ordering him out of the city, could he? Batman didn’t talk to reporters. Batman didn’t pose for photographers. Batman, as far as sensible people were concerned, probably did not exist.
If a reputable reporter somehow got an interview with Batman, it would be suspicious for him to then publish nothing about it. And being Bruce was even more useless in this situation. Breathe in, breathe out. There was no plausible reason for Gotham’s richest bachelor to give an out-of-town newshound the time of day without an appointment and at least a half-million dollars changing hands somewhere. And so the exact person he was trying to avoid was now intruding in the one space he’d previously respected.
Bruce gave up trying to meditate and got to his feet. He still had an hour before he had to start getting ready for...he thought for a moment. A benefit dinner. Cancer charity. Patients’ living-expenses fund. A very good cause. He’d need to be ‘on,’ as it were, oozing charm and availability and just the right amount of entitled gentility. Wayne Enterprises would, of course, be writing a very large check, but the point of the dinner was to persuade other people to follow his lead. He stretched his shoulders. A very different sort of costume, a different sort of mask, and a much more delicate fight. With any luck, it was at least one fight he could manage to have without Clark hovering nearby.
Bruce suppressed a sigh and papered over it with a bright, toothy smile as another dowager patted his hand, assured him that she intended to give very generously, and hoped sincerely that he’d find a nice girl to settle down with soon. That Lois Lane had been assigned to cover a drowsy high-society fund-raiser surprised him. That condition having been satisfied, however, he was not surprised in the slightest to see her guileless hayseed of a shadow bumbling along in her wake. He was no longer completely mystified as to how Clark kept getting people to tell him things; he could win every journalism award in the solar system and still fail to be taken seriously by his targets. His ignorant-bumpkin persona was almost as bulletproof as his skin.
There had been a brief half-second when he had wondered if Clark had deduced his own identity in the same way he’d deduced Clark’s, but that bright blue gaze had swept over him without pause to take in the room as a whole. Aside from Clark’s own colleagues and two guests Bruce knew to be involved in organized crime, no one in the crowd seemed to hold any special interest for the reporter. He still had that much of an edge, at least. Bruce moved on to the next knot of donors waiting to be finessed. Given how intensely aware he was of Superman’s presence, of the way he drifted through the assembly in absolute concealment, an unseen god walking among mortals, he would take any edge he could get.
Or, he thought, any new distraction. Vicki Vale caught his eye from across the room and arched an eyebrow suggestively, shifting her posture in subtle invitation, her green sheath dress clinging to her curves like a second skin. Bruce conjured a warm, lazy smile just for her and made his way over without undue hurry.
“You look bored, Brucie,” Vicki breathed, the edges of her lips curling up.
“Are you suggesting that you can propose something more entertaining?” he asked, his voice light and smooth and just the right touch of interested. Vicki, lovely Vicki, with her spun-copper hair and her glittering blue eyes, was the very picture of distracting. Particularly given her penchant for treating handsome, vapid men like kleenex and her preference for a sure thing over an easy thing.
“Are you suggesting that you’d join me in it if I could?” she challenged, her smile becoming more defined.
“How could I refuse such a delightfully mysterious invitation?” His laugh was low and throaty.
Vicki, he remembered, liked a hint of a chase. Liked feeling, just a little, as if she’d won when she got a man into bed. He leaned away from her slightly, and she leaned in close enough that the smell of the perfume she was wearing--almond and vanilla, with something darker running along under those notes--filled his nose. She traced the neckline of her gown delicately, the ruby lacquer on her nails drawing him in and the motion of her hand guiding his sight to the lush swell of her breasts under the silk. He swallowed thickly, letting his gaze linger just a second longer than subtlety dictated, then glanced up to meet her eyes. He made a show of blushing and looking away and cleared his throat nervously. She leaned in all the way against him, her lips practically brushing his ear.
“How could you, indeed?” she asked.
She turned gracefully and walked away, her hips swaying with a perfect rhythm and her shoulders set, utterly confident that he would follow her. Bruce smiled to himself and did, his gestures precisely calculated. It would be obvious to anyone who had been paying attention that they were slipping out for an assignation, but it wouldn’t do to alert everyone who hadn’t been paying attention into the bargain. He glided out of the ballroom a few paces behind her and fell into step as she led him through a back corridor and up a flight of stairs. His pulse quickened, Clark’s persistently irritating proximity forgotten at the sight of her ass and thighs flexing and shifting under the jade veil of her dress.
Vicki stopped at an unmarked door and smiled wolfishly at him before opening it.
“A coatroom?” he asked in mock-surprise. He had a mansion, and she wanted him in an unused coatroom. He could feel his cock stiffening.
“Live a little, Brucie,” she said, her voice husky. “You appreciate the wine and roses more when that’s not all there is to it.”
She wrapped his tie around her fingers and tugged him after her as she sauntered inside. He shut the door after them, barely having time to lock it before the hand on his tie grew more insistent, almost imperious. She leaned against the wall and pulled him close, the fingers of her free hand catching in his hair and guiding his lips to her throat. He took the invitation, crowding against her, his hands caressing her body from waist to hips and settling there as his tongue explored her neck. She slipped her knee between his legs and rested her thigh against him, pressing and rubbing as his cock hardened further.
Bruce set his teeth against her skin where shoulder met neck and tasted her, his tongue making small darting motions against her flesh. She tilted her head away, giving him more room, and then moaned quietly as his hands drifted lower, easing her dress up until the smooth pads of his fingers found bare skin above her stockings. Vicki breathed out in a rush and pushed him away, gentle but firm. He shot her a quick, questioning glance, then chuckled as he took in the smirk on her flushed face and the shift in her grip, her hands moving to his shoulders and urging him down onto his knees.
“Ms. Vale, I do believe you are trying to seduce me,” he said softly, stripping off his jacket and tie. He tossed them away, onto the floor. She smiled more broadly and licked her lips.
“I’d say I’m doing more than trying,” she purred, watching him kneel. She spread her legs around his broad shoulders, crooking one knee over his back and drawing him even closer to her. He moved his free shoulder until her other thigh was resting on him as well, and she hissed in anticipation, her muscles taut against his frame.
Bruce reached around her legs and inched her dress up to her hips, his fingers lingering for a moment on her garter belt. She leaned harder against the wall and dropped one hand to the back of his head, scarlet nails digging into his scalp as she nudged him forward impatiently. He hesitated for a long moment, then obeyed when her fingers tightened in his hair. He left a trail of kisses from the crest of her hip to the dense nest of red-gold curls. She shivered as his breath whispered over her skin.
“Oh, Bruce,” she choked as his tongue finally stroked along the length of her, burrowing between her folds and flicking flat and strong over her clit. Her back stiffened against the wall and her thighs over his shoulders as he repeated the movement. His strong hands kneaded and cradled her ass as the tip of his tongue curled around her clit again, teasing the hood before moving back down toward her dripping cunt.
Bruce worked his mouth against her skin, lost in her surging wet heat, all thought of anything but her temporarily blotted from his mind. This--this--had been all he needed. He’d been a fool to think otherwise, a fool not to remember all that he could have for the one thing he couldn’t. Vicki was soft and drenched and fierce against his tongue, her hips hitching against him and her fingers spasming in his hair. Caught in the moment, he needed her like he needed air.
“God, Bruce,” she breathed again, her voice thick with lust instead of shock this time. His cock jumped at the sound of her voice, painfully hard against the seam of his trousers through his boxers.
“I’m going to fuck you right here on the floor,” she panted, her hands moving to his and pressing against them, curling his fingers more tightly into her flesh. “Right here on the floor, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”
He smiled slightly--the part of him which never quite shut off trying to supply everything he could, in fact, do about it--and redoubled his efforts until she was arching forward and keening, and his fingers were digging in where he was supporting her.
“Belt. Pants. Undo them. Now,” she ordered. She extracted herself from his grasp, her legs shaking as she braced herself against the wall. He grinned up at her as he unbuckled his belt. She met his gaze with a blazing one of her own, the blush on her cheeks and at her throat almost belying the hunger still lurking behind her eyes. He reached for his jacket, and she snatched it from him.
“Pants,” she reminded him, her eyes not leaving his hands as her quick, slender fingers searched the lining pockets of his jacket for the condom. She found it almost immediately and held the wrapper delicately in her teeth as she pushed him down and onto his back, handling him with a firmness that bordered on rough.
She tore the wrapper open and slipped the thin polyurethane sheath over his leaking cock, making him groan and arch, every nerve in his body buzzing with need. Another moment and she had taken him in hand and was sliding down his length, the low moan escaping her throat and the pulsing heat of her cunt making his breath come hard and fast and ragged. Once she was properly seated, sheathing every millimeter of him, she grunted with some private satisfaction and leaned forward, bracing her hands on his shoulders and looking down at him.
“Perfect,” she muttered, her eyes glazed with desire as she took in his flushed face and mussed hair. “You’re just perfect like this. Absolutely perfect.”
He bit back a cry when she began rocking against him, her movements fast and hard and unforgiving, and then he was lost, his head thrown back and his eyes screwed shut and every muscle in his body coiled and aching. His hands found their way to her thighs, his fingers grasping her of their own accord like a drowning man holding a lifeline. She fucked him, rough and furious enough to bruise where her motions ground his back against the thin carpet, and didn’t let up until he was writhing and desperate under her. He felt like a drawn bow, ready for something, for anything, for the moment of release.
“Come for me, Bruce,” she growled, lowering herself to kiss him without breaking the rhythm of her thrusting. “Let me see you come.”
“Vicki,” he gasped, twisting under her helplessly. She ground her hips down ferociously and cried out, her eyes open and boring into his. And then he was over the edge, clutching her to him blindly and spilling into her and groaning against her. She collapsed onto him, her hands moving to his and prising them from her legs. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists and held them against the floor until she caught her breath.
“I’ve been thinking of this since you walked in the door,” she whispered, her lips moving against his jaw.
“Really?” he managed, still panting. “I’d never have guessed.”
“You, Mr. Wayne, have an answer for everything,” she murmured, her voice roughened and verging on hoarse.
He shuddered as her cunt tightened around him one last time. She reached between them and held the base of the condom in place as she dismounted. She smoothed her dress back down and crouched over him one last time, nudging his mouth open and sliding her tongue against his. He kissed her back until she broke away, then went through the motions of making himself presentable again. Vicki shot him a quick wink before disappearing out the door.
Bruce got to his feet slowly. He felt shell-shocked and warm, almost clumsy. He’d never make it out the front entrance looking like this, he thought. He ought to slip out the back before anyone missed him. He wiped his face on a handkerchief and pulled on his belt. His jacket and tie could wait until he’d found a restroom with a mirror. He smiled to himself, letting it turn into almost a grin. He hadn’t felt this right in his own skin for almost two months. It felt good to get his feet back under him.
Clark shifted uncomfortably and dropped his head to murmur in Lois’s ear. “Do you think we’ve got enough? Time to head out, maybe?”
Lois frowned and scanned the crowd. “Sure. What’s up? You need to report for duty on ‘another lead’?”
“I wish,” Clark said.
“Maybe we should wait for Bruce Wayne to turn back up. He is one of the headliners today,” she mused.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Clark said quietly, pitching his voice low so it didn’t travel past her. “He’s, uh, otherwise occupied at the moment.”
“Ah,” she said, her voice carrying a little too much enthusiasm. “You want to pull the car around, then?”
He nodded sharply and excused himself past the row of attendants at the front of the room.
He was blushing to the tips of his ears by the time they were on the road. Lois laughed again and shook her head.
“I still can’t believe they just took off for a quick shag in the middle of the party,” she told him, her tone measuring. “I mean, on her part, obviously, I can believe it. Vicki Vale wants what Vicki Vale wants, and she has a way of getting it, too. But Bruce Wayne?”
Clark gritted his teeth a little and thought of the slick, shallow playboy, floating from clique to clique, glad-handing the men and flirting with the women, smile never reaching his eyes, meaning none of it. “What’s there to disbelieve about him doing the same thing?”
“My sources,” she wiggled her eyebrows a little, “say he’s a third-date kind of guy. If he’s putting out in a bathroom within five minutes of running into someone? That counts as intel, Mr. Lane.”
“I think it was a coatroom, actually. And what kind of intel, Mrs. Kent?” he asked, his lips twisting.
She was in a good mood, at least. There were times he’d give a great deal for the ability to turn his super-hearing off, and insipid billionaires having disturbingly intense sexual encounters in a semi-public place had unexpectedly shot to the top of the list. He blushed again at the memory of what Vale had been saying to him--“I’m going to fuck you right here on the floor.” and “You’re just perfect like this.”--and Wayne’s own wordless moans and gasps in response to what she’d been doing to him.
Lois snorted. “Well, either Mr. Bruce “Pants. Now.” Wayne can be persuaded to be less of a gentleman if the right bait is used, or Ms. Vicki “I’m Going to Fuck You in a Cloakroom” Vale has snagged herself a beau and they’re keeping it quiet. Either of which will be earth-shattering news in certain circles.”
“What do your girlfriends all see in him, anyway?” Clark asked wearily.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re joking. Oh my god, you’re not joking. Clark, he’s eligible, young, and rich. And even if he weren’t, I don’t know if you happened to notice this around the trauma of having to listen to him make it with a gossip columnist, but he’s practically sex in a suit.”
“Yeah, I get that. But he’s just so, so...” He made a face. “Vacant. There’s no there there. That would have to get old pretty quickly.”
“I don’t know, Clark,” she teased, pretending to seriously consider his point. “I hear someone being hot and loaded has a way of making them seem a lot more interesting than they really are. I think the ten o’clock crew is even running a segment on it tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled.
She reached over and prodded him a little, her fingertips light against his ribs. “I get that he’s no Batman, but c’mon. Not everybody’s going to have access to a space station full of superheroes in skin-tight outfits to pick from. Some of us mere mortals are stuck having to settle for impossibly handsome, wealthy, sexually cooperative dullards.”
“Lois!” he choked, his face turning even brighter red.
She shot him a grin, then relented a little and dropped her hand to his, squeezing it firmly. “Don’t worry about it, Clark. Whatever Tall, Dark, and Vengeful is upset about, he’ll get over it. Just be patient. If you think about it, it’s probably a miracle he’s gone this long without acting out a little. Just imagine how nuts you’d want to go if you kept rounding up guys like the Joker only to have them break right back out less than a year later. Is there anyone on his usual-suspect list that doesn’t head straight for the town reservoir with a barrel of poison the second they hit the street?”
“I’d want to, maybe, but I still wouldn’t,” he sighed, crossing his arms.
“Yes, but remember--he’s only human.” She gave him a crooked little smile and patted his knee.
“I know, but...it’s like he’s hardly a member of the League anymore. We might as well have a Magic 8-Ball with a cowl on it sitting in his chair.”
“That’s...quite a mental picture, Smallville,” she said, smothering a laugh.
Clark threw up his hands. “I wish it were less accurate. He runs logistics, and he checks in with updates on whatever cases we’re working, but, outside of that, he really might as well not exist.” He shook his head. “Even Flash has started remarking on it. I get that Gotham comes first, second, and third for him, but I’ve been up one end of Crime Alley and down the other, and I still haven’t seen anything to indicate that there’s a bigger problem than usual. All the heavy hitters are still locked up, and their crews are keeping a low profile.”
“Maybe try talking to him about it again?” Lois suggested. “Or have Wonder Woman take a whack at it? You said he seemed to be getting along pretty well with her.”
“If he was avoiding the League at large, that might work,” he agreed, sinking down in his seat a little. “But he seems to be avoiding me a lot more than everyone else. Dragging Diana into the middle of it would probably only cause more trouble.”
“Maybe you could get your mom to make a batch of her famous cookies, put them out in the Watchtower, and drop a crate over him when he goes for one. Then just don’t let him out until he tells you what he’s pissed off about.”
Clark stifled a groan and rolled his eyes. “Lois, honey, he’s the world’s greatest detective, not Solomon Grundy.”
“Yeah, but you know he’s the world’s greatest detective, and he knows that you know he’s the world’s greatest detective. That’s why he’ll never see something as stupid as that coming. He’ll walk right into it.”
“I’ll put it in the ‘maybe’ pile,” he assured her, a smile finally creeping back across his face.
“There’s my ray of sunshine,” she said fondly.